28 JANUARY 1938, Page 18

— And Rabbits

Even the rabbits on the island breed less freely than on the mainland, but unfortunately they breed excessively. They are the curse of the island, which might be an admirable sheep run. Every known method of extermination has been tried, all the accepted devices "one sure if another fail," guns, ferrets, traps of many sorts, gas, poison, virus, but at the end of it all the rabbits are apparently as numerous as ever. The Forestry Commission have always succeeded in getting rid of the rabbits where they desired to afforest ; and the numbers were often legion, as over all the Thetford district. Presumably they have more workers and more money ; but it should not be beyond the power of man to rid a little space of 24o acres, into which immigration is impossible of its burden of undesirable population. * * * *