Page 353 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

INTRODUCED SPECIES THAT BECOME PESTS 333
The spread of this pest has been retarded, but the gypsy moth never willbewhollystampedout. To-dayitexistsinRhodeIsland,Connecti- cut and New Hampshire, and it is due to reach New York at an early date. ItissteadilyspreadinginthreedirectionsfromBoston,itsoriginal point of departure, and when it strikes the State of New York, we, too, will begin to pay dearly for the Trouvelot experiment.
It is said that General S. C. Lawrence, of Medford, Massachusetts, has spent $75,000
in trying to protect his trees from the ravages of this scourge.
The Rabbit Plague in Australia and New Zeal.^nd. —The rabbit curse upon Australia and New Zealand is so well known as to require
Httle comment. In this case the introduction was deliberate.
days when the sheep industr\ was most prosperous, a patriotic gentleman conceived the idea that the introduction of the rabbit, and its establish- mentasawildanimal,wouldbeagoodthing. Hereasonedthatitwould furnish a good food supplv, that it would furnish sport, and being unable to harm any other creature of flesh and blood it was therefore harmless. Accordingly, three pairs of rabbits were imported and set free.
In a short time, the immense number of rabbits that began to over- run the country furnished food for reflection, as well as for the table. A very simple calculation brought out the startling information that, under perfectly favorable conditions, a single pair of rabbits could in three years' time produce progeny amounting to 13,718,000 individuals. Ever since that time, in discussing the rabbits of Australia it has been necessary to speak in millions.
"The inhabitants of the colony," says Dr. Richard I.ydekker, "soon found that the rabbits were a plague, for they devoured the grass, which was needed for the sheep, the bark of trees, and every kind of fruit and vegetable, until the prospects of the colony became a very serious matter, andruinseemedinevitable. InNewSouthWalesupwardsof15,000,000 rabbits skins have been exported in a single year; while in thirteen years ending with 1889 no less than 39,000,000 were accounted for in Victoria alone.
"To prevent the increase of these rodents, the introduction of weasels, stoats, mongooses, etc., has been tried; but it has been found that those carnivores neglected the rabbits and took to feeding on poultry, and thus became as great a nuisance as the animals they were intended to destroy. The attempt to kill them off by the introduction of an epidemic di.sease has also failed. In order to protect such portions of the country as are still free from rabbits, fences of wire netting have been erected; one of these fences erected by the Government of Victoria extending for a dis- tance of upwards of one hundred and fifty geograj^hical miles. In New Zealand, where the rabbit has been introduced little more than twenty years, its increase has been so enormous, and the destruction it inflicts so great, that in some districts it has actually been a question whether the colonists should not vacate the country rather than attempt to fight against the j^lague. The average number of rabbit skins exported from New Zealand is now twelve millions."—(Royal Natural History.)
In the