SOMETHING ABOUT BABBITS.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1613, 4 November 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOMETHING ABOUT BABBITS.

The rabbit, inasmuch as he belongs to the mammalia, is on a footing of equality with man, and the whale, and other vertebrates — ' he beats them all, however, on the Malthusian population theory. According to Linnreus, and Cuvier, and other scientific men, he is of the order JRodentia, of the family Leporidse. It is to be informed that the rabbit is known in scientific circles, as Lepus cuniculus ; but we should not be sorry if he were Lepus non at. As far as the farmers and graziers of Australia are concerned, he might belong to the order of Eodentia, or any other order, so long as he would not stand upon the order of his going, but go at once. If you go out into the country, where the rabbits are very plentiful, you will probably not see any. They prefer to remain in their burrows, where they hold rabbit conventions, which, from their point of view, is much more satisfactory than being made into rabbit pie. If he does happen to be out, he lies very close, unless you have a dog; in which case he generally becomes very wide awake, and makes for his burrow, at the rate of thirty miles an hour, while you are, as yet, on the horizon. Should you have a gun with you, you may get a shot at him, provided that he is asleep. It is not on record that a rabbit was ever found asleep, this, if not a scientific fact, is, at least, negative evidence that he keeps his eyes open. The rabbit was introduced into this country by a patriotic squatter, who displayed, in his acclimatizing proclivities, more zeal than discretion. The squatter who introduced the rabbit is now no more ; the rabbit, on the contrary, is more and more. This is another instance of the universality of Shakespeare who said: " The evil that men do lives after them ! - The good is oft interred with their bones." When the rabbit wishes to establish himself in any locality he does not make any noise about it. Being a gregarious little animal he calls a council of his friends, and he immediately begins, on some particular property, to lay the foundation of his own prosperity and the proprietor's ruin. He commences to dig. Babbits have a very perfect system of division of labour; and twenty of them will dig a burrow, into which they will all disappear, quicker than an average school-boy will take his - fingers *out of a jam pot. , Rabbits are very profane animals ; at all events, if they don't swear themselves, they are the cause of much profanity amongst an otherwise highly respectable class of farmers, graziers, and gardeners. They are, also, the cause of an, infinite. amount of lying; as no man was ever known to acknowledge* tojhis neighbour, that he had .any rabbits on his ground', The best way to get rid. of rabbits is to dig them up and kill them. ■ This is a simple matter, of .self-defence, for, ,if the. man does not kill the Jtftbbit,, the rabbit will kill the .man. 1 ■ It does not follow,fchat the rabbit is garmvprous or bloodthirsty, 'but a : ,given, weighty rabbit,, if allowed to increase in accordance with* its inatural ,instinqts,v will, eat more >grass,on a gi^n, number. of years thanthe same ; weight, '6i any other animal the sun. OuVier ; i ■ said'that ,three iWqw-jaies'will^eat a buffalo, -quicker iiijan a-lioiCwill.^ O^ne same prin f- f -_ t cipl'e, % a pair of .rabbity '^illW.niqre m^b' ftfjn year! than a flooE of —the 1 increase ,) of ' >a*ch , s into ,'accbunt" [' A^WH^fe^sOi'followsJhat 'thi^aijbit 1 -ia u a more derp'cibus; amjmal %an' 'animal? fio%ev<^;>n% if- te'JA^tokiw

hold a caucus meeting of their ministerial supporters, in which your personal appearance is very unflatteringly discussed. When wigjin two hundred yard^.of the> borrow, you;ieill see two/solitary "rabb'its*lobking at you, in undisguised astonishment 1 at' your impertinence*; while a Careful; inspection,.will'; lead to the discovery of the tips of thousand i nine hundred and ninety-sjx ears ofjfche Lepus cuniculus slowly sinlnng beneath the surface of the ground, as-4f the owners of the said ears were very sorry to deprive you of their company. Finally, when you get within range— provided that you have a gun concealed about your person— you will see a masterly retreat made by the last two, in such a bewilderingly sudden fashion that you could not, on your oath, say whether they went in head first or tail first. > • The rabbit is said to be very prolific, and those who have studied him in his " noble, savage state" say that he has no compunctions whatever about undertaking the responsibilities of a family at a very early age. In this matter he resembles ,the blow-flies already mentioned. A friend of mine, who probably wished to put me in the Lunatic Asylum, propounded the following question :— • . ' " Bequired the produce of one pair of rabbits in four (4) years. The breeding season being monthly, during eight (8) months of the year— 4 months maturity being allowed before breeding {id est, the doe is 5 months old when she drops the first litter)— 4 young in each litter of equal sexes." I passed this question on to three of my friends, from whom I had expectations — on their death. The first to send me a reply was an eminent civil engineer, and a man who delighted in abtruse questions; he said (in pencil, by the way, which, I think, betrayed some levity, and a want of due appreciation of the importance of the matter to- the future existence of his fellow-countrymen) : " Problem: required the increase of one pair of rabbits, &c. (as above), in four years : —

One hundred and ninety-five millious, six hundred and seventy three thousand, two hundred and thirty-two bunnies at Gd per pair=£2,445,915 Bs. ; weight, at 3113. a rabbit=262,o62 tons ! ! ! " This gentleman is manifestly wrong in his calculations ; besides, he does not give us his method of arriving at his first year's produce ; and, moreover, there is a doubt cast upon his hona fides by his unnecessary and redundant information in the shape of the money .value at 6d. per pair, and the number of torn, and so on, together with his notes of exclamation at the end, all of which goes to show that he did not approach his task in the proper frame of mind. The next attempt at a solution was^ from a gentleman who, I am informed, has since exterminated his rabbits ; being led to the war of extermination by the stupendous result of his- own calculations. This gentleman treated the raatter in a semi-mathematical fashion. As it may be of some use to the reader to know how this gentleman arrived at a result, which had the beneficial effect, at least, of making him start a war of extermination against the bunny, I will give his calculations, at least in part, as there would not be sufficient space for the whole of them. He wrote : — •'Problem: Required the produce of one pair of rabbits in four years, &c. (as above). Then he went on thus :— Ist January, 1 pair of rabbits, plus 4 young, equals 6 alive 31st January ; ditto, 4 plus 6, equals 10 alive 28th February ; ditto, 4 plus 10 equals, 14 alive 31st March ; but here the foreman of the printing department came in with such a look of hopeless misery in his face at the utter impossibility of putting in type the multitudinous array of figures which this calculation necessitated, that we refrain, upon purely humanitarian grounds, from going any further, and will simply state his result, viz., 338 rabbits alive 31st December. To make this calculation perfectly dear, the reader will please observe that the original pair go on breeding for five months alone, simply increasing by four each month. In June, however, the young borne in January begin to breed, making three pairs ; in July .those born in February begin, making five pairs— and so on to December, when there ,are 27 pairs breeding, and the total number alive at the end of December is 338. Now, this is on the supposition that they breed for twelve months ; but the terms of the question state that they breed for eight months, therefore, we must make an allowance for the non-breedings months. The average number of pairs breeding for the whole term is— 7 pairs, therefore 338— (7 pairs by 4 months by 4 in a litter) — 226 being the produce for the first year." This gentleman's calculation are so very abstruse, that as they are probably incorrect I shall not follow him any further, but simply give his results : — Ist year breeding unit, 1 pair; produce, 226 ; one day old and upwards. 2nd year breeding unit, to the second power, 76 pairs, five months old and upwards, x 226, 17,176. 3rd year breeding unit, to the third power, 76 pairs, five months old and upwards, x 226, 1,305,376. 4th year breeding unit, to the fourth power, 76 pairs, five months old and upwards, x 226, 99,208,576. sth year breeding unit, to the fifth power, 76 pairs, five months old and upwards, x 226, 7,539,851,776. 6th year breeding unit, to the sixth power, 76 pairs, five months old and upwards, x 226, 573,028,734,976. Five hundred and seventy-three thousand and twenty eight millions, seven hundred and thirty-four thousand) nine hundred and seventy-six rabbits from one pair in six years." This result is at least striking, and may give food for reflection. The only thing that I am afraid of is, that it is not correct. When I suggested to my friend that ' he should go over his calculation again he smiled blandly, remarking that he wouldn't do it, again to find the parallax of Venus. The third calculation was made by a young gentleman, who, at the time, was bookkeeper on a station, where the rabbits were veryplentiful. ' His result is, I think, the most correct' of the lot, and is as follows : — "Produce of one pair of rabbits in four' years, assuming the breeding season to -be during eight consecutive months of the year ; the litter to contain four young, every month ,of ' the. -breeding season: equal \ the does to drop "their' first litter, when 'five months old : — First Year -. 80 Second Year 3j280 • .Third Year .. .. ' 134,480 Fourth Year .. „ ■ 5,513,680 Fifth Year .. .. 2,26,060,880 Sixth Year ' . . . : 9,268,496,080 ' . Assuming, then,- that this last calculation, whi6h is the smallest of the three, is the most ;cbrfeot, there will > be, in six years from -the appearance of 'the first pair of rabbits 'in any locality, nine thousand 1 million reasons, 1 whythey,.shouldhayebeen killed. ' / "■»-■>* * ' > . H I commend this to the very seriouß con- > sideratiotf of those gentlemen, whfr have'/gdt' a"'few.".t sv<>- -- vi * '' '*'"' ' iw

ist year s produce 2nd do do 3rd do do 4th do do 19,581,742,971 .. 193,910,401 195,673,23!