Page:Transactions NZ Institute Vol 22.djvu/383

 Phillips.—On Rabbit-disease. 321

The suggestion of Mr. Broden (p. 15) to introduce the fishers and the marten is hardly suitable to the conditions. Both these animals are only forms of the polecat that are specially adapted for living in dense subarctic forests. I am afraid that in New Zealand they would not live in our open country, but take to the bush, where there are no rabbits, as in America; for the American rabbit is really a hare that lives in forest country without making burrows.

It would be advisable to introduce the black-footed ferret which inhabits the prairies west of the Mississippi and lives on the gophers and prairie-dogs, which are rodents that have burrowing habits like our rabbits. Besides, the British mar- tens have even a worse reputation than polecats as destroyers of lambs, one pair having been known to kill twenty-one lambs in a night.

The suggestion of Mr. Thaine, of Capetown, requires more definite information, founded on experience.

The civet-cat is not a cat, but a burrowing animal about 31/2ft. long that inhabits subtropical Africa. As it is of great value on account of its musk-secretion, it would be a useful animal to introduce if it would thrive in this climate and live on rabbits.

The meer-cat is a small animal like a rat, being the African representative of the Indian mongoos, or ichneumon. It burrows in the dry arid plains of South Africa, and is very plentiful there. The Indian mongoos has already been turned out in New Zealand; but I have recommended the introduction of the kit-fox, a small species that lives in Oregon, and the Canadian lynx, as the most natural enemies of the rabbit.

JAMES HECTOR.

N.W. Mounted Police, Battleford, 17th January, 1889.

To the Officer commanding C Division, N.W.M.P. Sir,—In compliance with instructions received from you, I beg leave to report that last year and up to the present time there has been an unusual scarcity of rabbits in this part of the Saskatchewan district.

Every seven years the rabbits indigenous to this country become affected with a disease of the epizootic type, which, in my opinion, is malignant anthrax. The development of this disease may arise from contagion, mosquitoes and other in- sects with perforating apparatus to the mouth helping to communicate the disease ; frequent inundations of banks of rivers; very warm, dry summers; extreme vicissitudes in temperature of either night or day.

During the summer of 1886 and the spring of 1887 an

21