ADELAIDE TO MELBOURNE--THE RABBIT PEST--DANGEROUS EXOTICS.
The distance from Adelaide to Melbourne is about six hundred miles. Our
friends found that the journey was made very leisurely, the trains
averaging not more then eighteen or twenty miles an hour. For quite a
distance out of Adelaide the train ascends an incline as far as Mount
Lofty station, where the hill or mountain of that name is situated. On
the way up the last of the incline our friends watched with a great deal
of interest the plains stretching out below them, and the city which
they had just left lying at their feet like a section of carpet laid off
into ornamental squares. Beyond Mount Lofty station the route descended
into the valley of the Murray River, whose waters could be seen winding
like a thread through the yellow soil.
"This is the longest river in Australia, is it not?" queried Ned.
"Yes," replied the doctor, "it is the longest and largest river, and, as
you have already learned, it is the only one that remains a real river
throughout the year. Its mouth is not many miles from Adelaide, and a
considerable part of its course is through South Australia."
"I wonder they didn't establish the capital city at the mouth of the
Murray," remarked Harry; "they would have had the advantage of a
navigable stream, which they have not in the present location."
"Yes, that is quite true," Dr. Whitney replied; "and they would have
illustrated the saying of a philosopher, that great rivers nearly always
run past large cities, but there was a practical difficulty in the way,
of which you are not aware."
"What is it?"
"The Murray at its mouth has a bar that is very difficult and dangerous
to cross, and a large area at its entrance consists of shallow water.
The mouth of the river, furthermore, is swept by southerly winds, which
bring in great waves that have their origin in the neighborhood of the
South Pole. Consequently it was concluded that the location of the city
at the place with the largest entrance into the sea would not be
advantageous, and a location on Spencer's Gulf was considered
preferable."
"Very good reasons," said Ned, "and I have no doubt that the founders of
Adelaide acted wisely. They certainly have a very prosperous city where
they are, although their seaport is several miles away."
The train increased its speed as it descended the incline, and the
youths found plenty of occupation and amusement in studying the scenery
on each side of them, and noting the handsome residences of the
merchants and other well-to-do inhabitants of Adelaide. The river was
crossed by means of an iron bridge, a substantial structure which was
evidently built to last. After crossing the Murray, the railway
proceeded for awhile along its valley, and gradually left it to enter a
region of long-continued monotony.
"For hours in succession," said Harry in his journal, "we had little
else but scrub. I imagine that when the surveyors laid out the railway
line, they took their bearings by observation of the moon and stars, and
laid it directly across from one side of the scrub country to the other.
Scrub land is land covered with bushes. There are not many varieties of
bushes, and this fact helps along the monotony. There is one bush that
looks like an umbrella turned bottom upwards, and another that resembles
an umbrella standing upright, as one holds it to keep off the rain. Then
there are bushes and trees, some of them shaped like bottles, others
like sugar loaves, and some like nothing else that I can think of at
this moment. They vary from three or four feet in height up to fifteen
and twenty feet, and sometimes we found them of a height of thirty feet
or more.
"Mile after mile it is the same. I have heard what a terrible thing it
is to be lost in the scrub. I can well understand that it is terrible,
and can also understand how easily such a calamity could be brought
about. One mile of scrub is exactly like another mile, or so very nearly
like it that it is next to impossible to tell the difference. I have
heard that people who stepped only a few yards from the side of the road
have wandered for days before finding their way again, or have been
sought for by many people before they were found. Many a man has lost
his way in the scrub and never been heard of again, or perhaps years
after his bones were discovered bleaching at the foot of a tree, where
he had sat or lain down for his last rest when he could go no further."
A portion of the road from Adelaide to Sydney is called "the
ninety-mile desert," in distinction from the rest of the scrub region.
It was a great relief to any one to get out of this desert country, and
reach the region of farms, and fences, cattle or sheep pastures, and
cultivated fields. In some of the districts through which our travelers
passed they saw great numbers of rabbits, and on calling attention to
them, a gentleman who was in the railway carriage told them something
about the rabbit pest from which the Australian colonies are suffering.
"If you want to make a fortune," said the gentleman, "find some way for
destroying the rabbits in Australia. There is a standing reward of
twenty-five thousand pounds (one hundred and twenty-five thousand
dollars of your money) for any method that proves successful. The reward
is offered by the colony of New South Wales, and the other colonies will
pay as much more."
"Were there rabbits in this country when it was first discovered?" Harry
asked.
"There were no rabbits here," was the reply; "nor any animals like them.
In 1851, a gentleman living near Dunedin, New Zealand, was on a visit to
the old country, and it occurred to him that it would be a nice thing to
have rabbits in New Zealand, so that they could amuse themselves by
chasing the little creatures with dogs. On his return from England he
brought seven rabbits, and they were the progenitors of all the rabbits
in New Zealand, Australia, and Tasmania. For a few years, as fast as
rabbits were obtainable they were distributed throughout the colonies,
but it was not long before the distributors found out their mistake.
"The rabbits increased and multiplied at a terrific rate. How many
there are now in the colonies, nobody can tell, as it is impossible to
take a census of them, but they certainly amount to many millions. They
have destroyed millions of acres of sheep pasturage, so that many farms
which once supported great numbers of sheep have been deserted in
consequence of the rabbits. Let me give you an illustration that I know
about, as I was one of the sufferers by these vermin. Fifteen years ago,
I owned an interest in a sheep run on the bank of the Murray River in
the colony of Victoria. Our holding extended back into the dry and
comparatively worthless country.
"The rabbits got in there, and gradually the sheep were starved out.
Year by year the number diminished, and five years ago I sold my
interest in the run for a very small sum. From two hundred thousand
sheep, the number had diminished to twenty-five hundred, and these were
dying in the paddock for want of food. The rabbits were the cause of the
whole destruction. They had eaten up all the grass and edible bushes,
and it was some consolation to know that they were themselves being
starved out, and were dying by the hundreds daily. When the rabbits
there are all dead the place can be fenced in, so that no new ones can
get there, and it is possible that the grass will grow again, and the
run once more become a place of value.
"The story I have just told you," the gentleman continued, "is the story
of a great many sheep and cattle runs all over Australia and New
Zealand. All sorts of means have been resorted to to get rid of the
pest, and while some have been partially successful, none have been
wholly so. The best plan is the old one, to lock the stable before the
horse is stolen; that is, enclose the place with rabbit-proof fences
before any rabbits have been introduced. The Australian rabbit is a
burrowing animal, and unless the fence is set well into the ground, he
is very apt to dig under it. Thus it has happened that many an estate
has become infested, even though the owners had gone to the expense of
enclosing it.
"Most of the cities of Australia and New Zealand have a rabbit-skin
exchange, just as you have a cotton exchange in New York. At these
exchanges ten or fifteen millions of rabbit skins are sold every year,
or an aggregate perhaps of fifty or sixty millions, and yet the number
does not decrease perceptibly. Factories have been established for
preserving the meat of the rabbits in tin cans, and sending it to market
as an article of food. It was thought that this would certainly reduce
the number of rabbits, but it has not yet succeeded in doing so.
"Various kinds of apparatus have been devised for filling the dens of
the rabbits with noxious gases that kill them, but the process is too
expensive for general introduction; and, besides, it does not work well
in rocky ground. Rewards are given both by the government and by the
owners of land for the destruction of rabbits, and these rewards have
stimulated men, who go about the country with packs of dogs to hunt down
the rabbits for the sake of the bounty. Sometimes the whole population
turns out in a grand rabbit hunt and thousands of rabbits are killed.
Pasteur, the celebrated French chemist, proposed to destroy the rabbit
population by introducing chicken cholera among them; he thought that
by inoculating a few with the disease he could spread it among the
others, so that they would all be killed off. He admitted that the
chicken population would be killed at the same time, but none of us
would object to that if we could get rid of the rabbits, as we could
easily reintroduce domestic fowls."
Ned said that he wondered why the rabbits increased so rapidly in the
Australian colonies and not in the United States or England.
"Here is the reason of it," said the gentleman. "In America there are
plenty of wild animals, like wolves, weasels, foxes, ferrets, and the
like, to keep down the rabbit population, but here there is not a single
animal to interfere with them. They have no natural enemies whatever,
and consequently have things entirely their own way. They breed several
times a year and begin to breed very young, so that a pair of rabbits
let loose in a given locality will in a few years amount to thousands or
even to millions. There, look at that piece of ground and see what you
think of it."
The boys looked where the gentleman indicated, and saw what seemed to be
a field of tall grass or grain waving in the wind. A nearer inspection
showed that the ground was covered with rabbits, and it was the
movements of the animals that caused the illusion just described.
"Rabbits are not the only pests from which the colonies have suffered,"
the gentleman continued; "I will tell you about more of them.
"You must bear in mind," said their informant, "that when Australia was
settled it contained very few of the products, either animal or
vegetable, of other parts of the world. Among the animals there were no
noxious ones except the dingo, or wild dog, which was found in various
parts of the country. His origin has been a matter of conjecture, some
believing that he is descended from dogs which were left here by those
who discovered the continent, while others think he is indigenous to the
soil. All the other animals, and they were not numerous, were harmless
in their character. There are eight kinds of kangaroos, all of them
herbivorous. They are, as you are doubtless aware, marsupials, that is,
they carry their young in a pouch until they are able to run about by
themselves. The dingo lived by feeding on the kangaroos, and thus kept
down the number of those animals.
"Horned cattle, horses, and sheep were introduced and successfully
raised. The wild dogs killed sheep and calves, and therefore the
inhabitants set about killing them. As the dogs decreased in number the
kangaroos increased, and they threatened to drive the sheep to
starvation by eating up all the grass. Many a sheep run was rendered
worthless by the kangaroos, and so it became necessary to establish
methods of reducing the number of the latter. Battues or hunts were
organized, the people gathering from all directions at an appointed time
and place, and driving the kangaroos into pens or yards, where they were
slaughtered by the thousand. You will probably have an opportunity of
seeing a kangaroo hunt before you leave Australia.
"There were very few native fruits, and we introduced the fruits of
England and other parts of the world very successfully. We introduced
garden plants and vegetables in great numbers, and nearly all of them
turned out to our satisfaction, though this was not uniformly the case.
"You know that innocent and very acceptable plant called the watercress,
which is sold in great quantities for table use in London, New York, and
other English and American cities. Well, we brought the watercress to
the Australian colonies, and it grew and thrived wonderfully. It grew
altogether too well and thrived a great deal more than we could have
wished, as it has choked our rivers, and caused freshets and floods
which have devastated farms and fields to a large extent, and on several
occasions have been destructive to human life.
"We introduced the sweet briar, thinking it would form an ornament and
fill the air with its perfume. Instead of being ornamental, it has
become an impenetrable bush, which neither man nor cattle can go
through. It has become a nuisance, spreading over the ground and
destroying pasturage, and we heartily wish that not a twig of it was
ever brought here.
"When we began to grow fruits we found ourselves annoyed by insects of
various kinds, the same sort of insects that are known to fruit growers
everywhere. In order to get rid of them, we brought the English sparrow
here. He is of great use to the fruit grower in the old country, as he
lives principally on insects, or at any rate has the reputation of doing
so, and he does not often attack the fruit.
"Well, we got the sparrow here, and he increased and multiplied until
he became very numerous, and what do you suppose the little wretch did?
"He did not do anything that we wanted him to do. He abandoned his
English practise of eating insects, and lived wholly upon grain and
fruit. In the fruit season he is a perfect terror in the devastation he
makes among our fruit trees. A flock of sparrows will make its
appearance in a cherry garden where there are twenty, fifty, or perhaps
a hundred cherry trees bending beneath a burden of fruit just about ripe
enough to be picked. They save the owner the trouble and expense of
picking his fruit, as they take entire charge of it, and in a few days
the whole crop is ruined. Other fruit suffers in the same way, and the
testimony is the same from all parts of Australia. One of the colonial
governments had an investigation of the subject at one time, and the
testimony was something appalling. The sparrows abound here in countless
millions, all of them descended from fifty birds that were imported
about the year 1860. The owners of vineyards, as well as the fruit
farmers, complain of the ravages of the sparrows, and at the official
investigation that I mentioned one vine grower testified that his crop
of grapes the previous year would have been two tons, but the sparrows
destroyed the entire lot.
"Another bird almost as destructive as the sparrow is the _mina_ or
_mino_, a bird which was brought here from India. It is quite a handsome
bird, and can learn to talk almost as readily as the parrot, and that is
why it was brought here. It lives on fruits and vegetables, and has very
nearly the same habits as the sparrow. The colonial government have
placed a bounty upon the heads and eggs of the sparrow, and also on
those of the mina. A great many boys and men, too, make a fairly good
revenue in killing the birds or plundering their nests. The birds are
trapped, shot, or poisoned, but their number does not seem to diminish.
"Somebody brought a daisy to Australia, as it is a very popular flower
in England, and was expected to remind the English settler of his old
home. It has spread very rapidly, and on thousands upon thousands of
acres it has rooted out the native grasses and taken full possession of
the soil. Another plant has a history which would be ludicrous if it
were not so serious, and that is the thistle."
"You mean the regular thistle, such as is known in England and the
United States?"
"I refer particularly to the Scotch thistle," said the gentleman, "which
is not particularly unlike the other thistles with which we are
familiar. You know that the thistle is the emblem of Scotland, and may
be said to be worshipped by all patriotic Scotchmen. Well, it happened
that a Scotch resident of Melbourne, while visiting the old country,
took it into his head to carry a thistle with him on his return to
Australia. So he placed the plant in a pot and watered it carefully
every day during the voyage from London to Melbourne. When he arrived
his performance was noticed in the newspapers, and a subscription dinner
was arranged in honor of the newly arrived plant. About two hundred
Scotchmen sat down to the dinner, at which the thistle was the
centerpiece and the great object of attraction. Speeches were made, and
the festivities continued to a late hour of the night. The next day the
thistle was planted with a great deal of ceremony, and more speeches in
the public garden at Melbourne, and it was carefully watched and tended
by the gardener, who happened to be a Scotchman.
"Well, the thistle blossomed and everybody rejoiced. You know how the
seeds of that plant are provided with down, that enables them to float
on the wind. The seeds of that thistle were borne on the breezes, and
all over the colony of Victoria they found a lodging in the soil, grew
and prospered, and sent out more seeds. That thistle has been the cause
of ruin to many a sheep and cattle run all over Australia. Thousands,
yes, millions, of acres of grass have been destroyed by that pernicious
weed. Anathemas without number and of the greatest severity have been
showered upon the thick-headed Scotchman who brought the plant to
Australia, and the other thick-headed Scotchmen who placed it in the
public garden.
"While I am on this subject," the gentleman continued, "I may as well
tell you of a very curious circumstance in New Zealand."
"What is that?"
"When the sheep farmers first established their business in the mountain
regions of New Zealand, they observed flocks of parrots occupying the
forest, and living entirely upon fruits and vegetables. They were very
pretty birds and nobody thought that any harm would come from them, in
view of their habits of life. The farmers used to kill some of their
sheep for food purposes, and leave the meat hanging out over night in
the cool air. It was observed that the parrots got in the habit of
coming down to the meat frames and picking off the layers of fat,
particularly those around the kidneys. Their fondness for this kind of
food seemed to increase as time went on, and they finally became such a
nuisance as to compel the herders to give up their practise of leaving
the meat out of doors in the night-time.
"After a while the farmers occasionally found the fattest and best of
their sheep dead or dying of wounds across the smaller part of the back
directly in the region of the kidneys. Nobody could tell how the wounds
were made, but it was evident that the mischief-makers were numerous, as
a good many sheep, always the finest of the flock, were killed. Finally,
one of the men employed about a sheep run ventured to suggest that it
must be done by the parrots. His suggestion was ridiculed so earnestly
that the man was sorry he had made it, but he gave as his reason for it
the fact that he had seen a parrot perched on the back of a sheep and
the bird flew away when he approached.
"Watchers were set over the sheep, and the suggestion of the man proved
to be the correct one. How the birds ever connected the existence of the
fat which they tore from the carcases on the meat frames with the
location of the same fat in the living animal, no one can tell, but
certain it is that they did so. It was found that a parrot bent on
securing a meal, would fasten his claws in the wool of the sheep, and
then with his powerful beak he would tear away the skin and flesh until
he reached the fat of which he was in search around the kidneys of the
struggling animal. It was impossible for the sheep to shake him off;
whether it ran or lay down and writhed in its agony, the bird retained
its hold until its object was accomplished."
"Of course this led to a war of extermination against the parrots, did
it not?"
"Certainly it did. As soon as the fact was well established the colonial
government offered a reward of one shilling for each parrot's head, and
the business of hunting these birds began at once. Formerly they used to
come freely into the presence of man, but now they shun him, and it is
very difficult to find them. They live in the forest, concealing
themselves in the daytime, and only coming out at night. In fact, their
depredations were committed in the night-time, and that is the reason
why their offences continued so long without being discovered."
"Did they cause great destruction among the flocks of sheep?"
"Yes, until they were found out and the war began against them they were
terribly destructive. One man lost two hundred sheep out of three
hundred, another lost nineteen out of twenty, and several others in the
same proportion. Even now, although the number of parrots is diminished
enormously, the flocks in the region where they abound lose at least two
per cent. every year from that cause."
"Is there any way of exterminating them by poison?"
"No way has been discovered as yet, as the birds are very cunning and
cannot be readily induced to take poisoned food. They are more wary in
this respect than rabbits and sparrows, as both of these creatures can
be poisoned, though the danger is that in attempting to poison them the
food is apt to be taken by domestic animals or fowls."
"Speaking of poisoning reminds me of an instance in Queensland some
years ago, where there was a large number of blacks inhabiting the
forest near a sheep station.
"The owner of the station had been greatly annoyed by the blacks, who
had killed many of his sheep, and in several instances had threatened
the shepherds with death, and driven them from their places. He
determined to get even with them, and this is the way he did it. He
loaded a cart with provisions such as flour, sugar, bacon, tea, and
other things, which were distributed to the shepherds once a week. Then
the cart started apparently on its round. Near the place where the
blacks were congregated one of the wheels of the cart came off, and at
the same time the vehicle became stuck in a gully. The driver took his
horses from the shafts and rode back to the station for help, leaving
the cart and its load unguarded.
"Here was a fine opportunity for the blacks to exercise their thieving
propensities, and they did not miss it. In less than an hour the cart
was stripped of everything edible, flour, sugar, and everything else
being carried away. When the driver returned, he found only the empty
vehicle with which to continue his journey.
"That afternoon the blacks had a grand feast over the stolen property.
All the members of the tribe came together and took part in the feast,
about two hundred in all. It so happened that everything edible had been
dosed with strychnine before the cart was loaded, and in a few hours
all who had partaken of the feast were dead. Much as the white people
around there had been annoyed by the blacks, there were few, if any, to
approve of this wholesale poisoning which the sheep owner had undertaken
entirely on his own responsibility."
"I suppose it is due in some measure, at least, to performances of this
sort that the blacks are diminishing in number," Dr. Whitney remarked.
"No doubt that has a good deal to do with the matter," was the reply. "I
don't know of any other instances than this of wholesale poisoning, but
I do know that in a good many instances, black men have been shot down
by whites for the reason that they had speared cattle or committed other
depredations. The blacks have been treated very much the same way as
your American Indians, and generally with as little provocation; but,
beyond all this, it is well known that the number of births among them
every year is considerably less than the number of deaths from natural
causes. Some people believe that the blacks are addicted to infanticide,
and that many of their children are put to death to save the expense of
bringing them up. Understand me, nobody knows positively that this is
the case, but only surmises it."