in this colony hitherto proved a failure. It is also to be borne in mind that, great as this expense is, a diminution in the number of rabbits will not very sensibly decrease it, because, though the men employed may be fewer, the wage of each or the price per skin would probably be increased owing to the lesser number of rabbits that could be killed in a day.

DECREASE IN QUANTITY OF WOOL.

In estimating the approximate loss to the sheep-owner there is also to be considered the decrease in the quantity of the wool. In Southland proper there were from seven to eight hundred bales less this year than the last, though the present was a favourable season. In one case, where two hundred and fifty bales were shipped last year, there were only one hundred and fifty this season; and unless active remedial measures be adopted it would be hard to say what the export would be next year. In another case, where there were nine hundred bales last year, there were only seven hundred and fifty this year. And not only do the rabbit ravages affect the quantity, but they injure also the quality of the wool, for, as the young grass makes its appearance in the spring, it is eagerly devoured by rabbits, and the ewes, with lambs following them, find themselves, when needing the most nourishment, reduced to comparative starvation.

DECREASE OF PER CENTAGE OF LAMBS.

The deficiency in the increase of lambs shows more clearly still the lessened depasturing capacity of the runs. For instance, one sheep farmer only got 900 lambs from 6,000 ewes, or 15 per cent.; another, 2,500 from 20,000 ewes, or 12½ per cent.; a third, 1,500 from 10,000 ewes, or 15 per cent.; a fourth, 700 from 10,000 ewes, or 7 per cent.; a fifth got no increase at all, while the average increase last year throughout the Western District—an exceptionally good year—was 20 per cent. instead of from 65 to 70.

DECREASE OF CARRYING CAPACITY.

Equally expressive is the effect on the carrying capacity of the run, as regards stock. In one case we learn that the stock was reduced from 9,000 to 6,500, or 27½ per cent.; in another, from 16,000 to 5,000 or 69 per cent.; in a third, from 40,000 to 25,000 or 37½ per cent.; in a fourth there was a loss of 16,000 sheep in 18 months; in a fifth, a loss of 7,532 in a flock of 43,310, or nearly 18 per cent.; and yet in another, two years ago, there were shorn 22,000, last year 19,000 only, showing a decrease of 13½ per cent.; and this present year only 15,000 were shorn, showing a further decrease of 21 per cent., or, in the two years, about 32 per cent of actual diminution.

All this speaks of the past. It would be difficult to anticipate the future. The rapid increase of the scourge, notwithstanding the slaughter, will tell most powerfully on the old ewes and the young lambs; on the former from the absence of the young and succulent grasses, on the latter from deficient nutriment from their mothers; thus old and young will both suffer, to say nothing of the want of stamina in the remainder of the flock.

DECREASE OF FATTENING CAPACITY.

We have heard many and serious complaints of the deficiency of fattening capacity on the runs owing to the ravages of the rabbits; in one instance, three years since, where 2,300 fat sheep and bullocks were got off a run carrying 16,000, now it barely carries 500, and among them scarcely one fit to be killed.

The rabbit is somewhat dainty in its selection of food. It chooses the English and finest native grasses, yet condescends to snatch a meal off the young tussock growth as it springs into existence. Not only does it devour, but it destroys herbage by its pollutions wherever it feeds, driving cattle and sheep away, and rendering the soil a desert. Nor does it confine its devastations to grass only, the young trees in the forests being barked, and thereby seriously, if not permanently, injured. And further, we might state what we have ourselves experienced, namely—the danger of riding rapidly across country, and what we have observed in the honeycombing of the railway embankments to an extent which, if not arrested, threatens to be seriously injurious to the travelling public.

EFFECT ON STATE REVENUE.

We might well stop this enumeration were it right to do so, but there is yet another point from which this increasing evil must be viewed, and that is—the effect on the Provincial estate. In Southland proper, there being an acreage assessment, the effect is not much felt so far as the revenue is concerned, but if the scourge is not arrested what will be the value of the estate for leasing, say in 1881, when most of the leases fall in? We do not feel called on to entertain this question, but it may not be unimportant to observe that in Otago, as it existed before the union, where the rabbit nuisance is comparatively not so alarming, the results are nevertheless, it is said, not insignificant.

DIFFICULTIES IN EXTERMINATING THE RABBIT.—EXTRAORDINARY FECUNDITY.

III. The chief difficulty in exterminating the rabbit arises from its powers of multiplying. Blaine, in his book of "Rural Sports," observes "that rabbits will breed at six months old, bear seven times annually, and bring five young ones each time. Supposing this to happen regularly during the space of four years, and that three of the young at each kindle are females, the increase will be 478,062." Again, Chambers, in their "Information for the People," say—"The rabbit litters seven times in the year, and generally produces eight young at a time. At the age of five months the animal begins to breed, and taking an estimate perfectly within bounds, it is supposed that a pair of wild rabbits, which breed no oftener than seven times in a year, would multiply in the course of four years to the amazing amount of a million and a quarter if the young are preserved." If common report be correct the climate and soil of New Zealand are peculiarly favourable to the domestic habits of rabbits, and they are said to breed at least nine months in each year, having at least six young at each kindle, and the females will breed at the age of three months. If this be true then the problem of extermination becomes very difficult of solution.

PECULIAR CHARACTER OF COUNTRY.

The most important difficulty attending the attempt to arrest or exterminate the rabbit, after that resulting from its fearful fecundity, arises from the peculiar character of the country. The banks of the four main rivers, viz., the Mataura, Oreti, Aparima, and Waiau, which intersect the district, (together with their tributaries,) formed of loose, warm, sandy loam and gravel, covered with high flax, tussocks, and in some cases large patches of scrub, afford comfortable warrens in which whole communities of rabbits can find a safe and almost indestructible shelter, to which they can escape when pursued in the plains, and from which nothing but an occasional very high flood can drive them; while, unlike the usual habit of the rabbit in the home country, after having worked their way up the river flats into the interior, their most favourite haunts appear to be the heart of the various mountain ranges—forming the watershed of the rivers—in the scrubs, rocks, and forests of which they find secure shelter, and issuing from which in droves, as we have seen them, they devastate the surrounding country, and reduce first-class fattening sheep land to a wilderness.