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Chapter II.

As mine is now a bachelor's hall, and as times have changed, I dispense with a cook in the hut. The few men I employ board in my kitchen, and as I am not overburdened with company, I often go there of an evening, and get up a talk about flora or fauna with Tim. But I must formally introduce him. He is my rabbiter, and has been with me for many years. He has a taste for Modern Natural History, as he calls it, that is, he does not believe that the moa and kangaroo were ever in the Garden of Eden. Nevertheless, I have found him trusty, industrious, and reliable in the highest degree.

Many a one has been astonished on first acquaintance with the way in which a rabbit cares for its young; how it plucks its fur for their warm bed; stops the mouth of the hole and stamps it firm for their protection; how it leaves a ventilator when required, and later, a little hole for them to come out and feed. Then, if the mother has warning, she will stamp her danger signal, the young will hurry in and she will stop the mouth of the hole with wonderful speed and dexterity, obliterate its exact locality, try to decoy away the danger, and when it is past, come back and open the hole.

Tim tells me that he has often known a doe rabbit to stop herself in, in the branch of a burrow. He says he has often felt loose earth in the ends of a burrow where it is generally hard, and often lost a rabbit in a hole, until he recognized the coincidence and dug out a rabbit that had stopped herself in, with five or six inches of firmly pressed earth through which the dogs lost the scent, and that discovery has saved him digging many a duffer since. This suggests another reason for the failure of ferrets and fumigating. I asked him what the rabbit did for air? He answered, "I have taken 13 rabbits out of a deep hole, that were crammed in as tight as they could get. I dug it out very slowly, but they did not seem to be hurt for want of air. Again, I have known four rabbits to have been stopped in a short plece of burrow where they had not room to move, and next day I dug them out all well. Even a young rabbit knows what a trap is, and the setting of a trap that would deceive some rabbits would deceive a man. I have known some rabbits to defy all my art to trap them." This will suggest the posssibility of their learning something about poison. It suggested to me that my knowledge of their mental affairs was very deficient. Wherever there is a ferret in a whole neighbourhood, the page 8 rabbits will bolt out of their holes, unless they have been hard press by the dog that chased them in, evidently a move of theirs for [unclear: avoid] the ferrets.

In choosing sites for their nests in this district, last year, the [unclear: rabb] seem to have taken into account the presence of ferrets, and to [unclear: h] known something of their habits, for nearly all the nests were out as bare ground as possible. It appears that a ferret has a [unclear: g] dislike to go out on bare places, but prefers keeping among [unclear: scru] tussocks, and along creek banks and fences. As a result of [unclear: t] manœuvre, Tim says that, though he caught 1,500 young rabbits [unclear: dur] the season, he only got two or three litters that had been killed ferrets. Of course there were only a few ferrets on the [unclear: breed] ground.

Out on the run one day my dog chased and caught several [unclear: rab] rather an unusual thing for him to do. I remarked to Tim that [unclear: th] must be something the matter with those rabbits. "No," said "they are only on the 'wallaby track'; a rabbit is not much good run on strange ground. You may have often noticed how [unclear: easi] rabbit is caught on newly burned ground before it had time to [unclear: exp] it, and I believe that wherever a rabbit has once been he can [unclear: rua] full tilt ever afterwards while looking behind him." And [unclear: do] think, I asked, they travel much? "Oh yes, what is to prevent [unclear: th] See how far we get poisoned ones from where they could have taken poison." "Well, you see that our domestic animals like to stay [unclear: ab] where they were reared." "Yes, but it is not so with the [unclear: rabb] because they seem to be specially fitted to destroy any [unclear: pasture,] migrations are almost necessary for their existence in a [unclear: country] this, where there is nothing to keep them in check." And what is keep them in check, said I, if ferrets won't? "Cats," he [unclear: promp] answered. "You may have noticed how the rabbits feed at the [unclear: d] step, and leave traces within a few feet of the dog chain, showing [unclear: t] weak point in their boldness, just what the cat is able to take advantage of by lying in wait. And I have no doubt but that if we [unclear: k] their history far enough back, we would find that the cat and the [unclear: rah] came from the same place."

"Well, Tim, that is a queer commentary on the present important of 3,000 stoats that may cost the Government £2 a head to [unclear: land,] cannot agree with you, however, when you say that a ferret [unclear: does] a rabbit a month, because I often found rabbits out on the [unclear: run] had been killed by ferrets." "I have often found dead [unclear: rabbits,"] Tim, "but very few have I found that had been killed by ferrets, ferret invariably injures the skull just above the eye, in a [unclear: manner] no cat can imitate; and if you pay attention to this you can [unclear: al] identify who killed it. When a ferret kills a rabbit it always [unclear: drag] into a hole or under scrub or fern, so that we seldom see any of [unclear: th] work. What dead rabbits we find are most likely, killed by cats." page 9 admit the value of cats, for of that we have evidence in the number of young rabbits the house cats bring in, and if we only knew how many they kill and leave out, the evidence would be much stronger. But that is not the question, for we may say that we tried the cats and found them wanting. We need a more drastic enemy, one that will clear them out at once. "But," said Tim, "if we had spent as much on distributing and protecting cats as we have on ferrets, and if we were content to wait as long for results, we might have a different opinion of cats."

What were you saying about rabbits travelling and destroying pastures?

"Yes, they nip the seedlings at the earliest possible moment, when you would require spectacles to see the result of their mischievous work; they eat the crowns of native grass that cannot stand it, and even their excretion seems to kill some of the strongest of our grasses. You see, in Old New Zealand there were no grass-eaters save kakapos, and may-be, moas; unlike Australia or any other country, the grass was developed under conditions directly opposite to what we wanted, and when we know the severity and apparent wantonness of the rabbit we need not wonder at the dissolving profits from our pastures. As you know, said Tim, I was up on the 'Great Warrens, rabbiting on my own account, the year before I came to you. After a while the rabbits became so scarce around my camp that I had to go four miles for a tally of 50, but all at once, in August, they reappeared about my place so plentifully that I could get 80 or 100 a day, and I was in for a good thing, if they had not all died." Why did they not emigrate? I asked. "They were on the wallaby, but got starved, said Tim; I met a neighbour of mine coming home one night with 214 skins, and he told me that he had not seen a live rabbit that day." Was there no poisoning done up there that year? "No, you could not poison that country to do any good. I went on an exploring expedition before I left, and it was an awful journey. My dogs were nearly starved, for I only got 13 rabbits in 5 days, while the gullies were just strewed with their mummied skins, and all the place seemed blasted. There was not a living thing but keas and a few birch trees, even the scrub, the snow-grass, and the swamp tussock were all dead. The rabbits barked the scrubs and camped on the tussocks. The sheep used to eat the great snow tussock without killing it, but the rabbits killed it without eating it much closer than the sheep did. I believe that more died of starvation up there that year than has ever been poisoned in Southland." Are there many rabbits up there now? "No doubt there are a good many, but they will never again be thick enough to pay for catching as long as they have sole charge of the pasture. But now that they have liberated ferrets the pasture may improve a little and the rabbits proportionately. I want to dray your attention, said Tim, to a specimen of their nightly page 10 scampers, when they ate Old Buffer's barley." Perhaps, said [unclear: I,] came over the river. "Some of them may, said he, but I [unclear: found] out. You know that Rocky Terrace is a stronghold of [unclear: theirs,] it is three and a half miles from the barley. Well, I used [unclear: to] a lot of rabbits down there and wondered why the contents [unclear: of] stomachs were so white, until I thought of the barley being [unclear: in] In hopes of a good tally I went there one moonlight night [unclear: and] a lot in the stooks, all with white stomachs. That was [unclear: seven] they went for a feed—49 miles a week, in all likelihood." Why they not burrow on that flat now? They used to be there in the sands. "Well," said Tim, "the holes are too easy to dig. [unclear: There] a seam of big shingle, and the rabbits know that they connot [unclear: go] enough to be secure, so they adopt Rocky Terrace as a refuge [unclear: and] all the grass on the flat. Old Buffer seems to be quite [unclear: satisfied] the way they serve him. He was a bit mad about the barley, but does not seem to know that there are hundreds on his grass [unclear: padd] every night; and I am sure he would be a good deal madder if [unclear: he] knew exactly the loss they cause him. I think the loss [unclear: they] unknown to us is almost equal to the loss that we charge [unclear: them] and that there are hundreds of people in New Zealand coddling the selves with the idea that they are getting along as well as the [unclear: til] will permit, though in reality they may be doing just like Old But—keeping eleven shillings in the pound, and throwing away [unclear: on] rabbits the other nine, that they might save for harder winters lower prices.

"It is my opinion, said Tim, that the rabbits have three [unclear: migra] periods in the year:—First, the does are off in search of [unclear: the] quarters they can find for their young, in this they will swim [unclear: ri] like rats; second, in March and April the young ones [unclear: stampedes] where for pure flashness; and third, when food is scarce, a [unclear: wh] community of them seem to be able to spot their quest at great [unclear: dista] and will be there if possible.

"About their swimming, you know that I have often cleaned the [unclear: h] island in floods, yet they are back again although they have thirty [unclear: ya] to swim, for they could not swim at the fords."