Mr. Gordon Gardner, examined.

407. By the Chairman: What is your present occupation?— I am connected with pastoral pursuits.

408. Have you had experience of rabbits?— A very great deal, I think.

409. In what parts?— Well, in the Western parts of Victoria more particularly.

410. And what other parts?— On the borders of Queensland they are getting about. About 1896 the rabbits were just making an appearance on the borders. In the meantime they had got a good substantial fence up right across.

411. You have had experience in a Western district in Victoria and Queensland?— Not so much in Queensland, because when I was really living there the rabbits were not there at all. I was only there a short time.

412. Have you had any experience of New South Wales and South Australia?— Oh, yes.

413. You have had experience of the rabbits of New South Wales and South Australia?— In South Australia? Oh, no; I have had no experience whatever.

414. For the prevention of invasion what methods have you adopted?— Simply put up a rabbit mesh.

415. A rabbit fence?— Yes; also put up a slab fence, a very expensive affair; putting half in the ground; that is too expensive, but it has been used on the West of Victoria. Of course there is plenty of timber to be got.

416. What kind of mesh did they use?— An inch and a-half ; but it is too much.

417. What width of net?— About four feet fully.

418. Four feet out of the ground?— No ; including in the ground.

419. Including six inches in?— I will not say six inches in the ground. Three inches in the ground, and then give it a slope over. You bend the wire over at an angle, so that when a rabbit comes up to the mesh and burrows it comes on to the mesh.

420. By Mr. Harper: How much would you leave out of the ground?— It should be three and a half feet.

421. And six inches under ground?— Yes ; about that.

422. By the Chairman: In erecting a fence what measures do you deem most advisable to adopt to keep them down?— To keep them down?

423. To keep them down?— Well, the exterminators have been used a great deal where they are worst. They are very good things to use.

424. Those are the distributors of poison?— No. They pump in gases, filling up all blow-holes and leaving one open till you get the pipe in, and then filling that up and blowing in the gases. You may kill about thirty rabbits at one burrow run. When the rabbits are found dead in the burrows, the other rabbits will not go into the burrows.

425. They do not make use of the burrow?— They do not make use of it again.

426. That is an established fact, is it?— That is an established fact. I have always found it so, because I have tried them some long time afterwards, and found there were no tracks of fresh rabbits.

427. Have you had actual experience in places you were connected with of great losses accruing to those places through the incursion of rabbits?— I cannot say I have. I was riding along a place called Stony Recess, and there is a creek. On one side it is a rich, black, loamy soil, and the rabbits would not burrow there; but on the other side it was volcanic country, and there were millions of them. They started away and went up East, between Camperdown and Pirronyarvah.

428. Have you had any experience of the migratory habits of rabbits?— If you disturb them in the place where they are settled it does not completely annihilate them. They migrate somewhere else. When they have eaten up the portion of the country where they are, they begin to travel in thousands.

429. Then would you consider it an improper method to pursue to interfere with small colonies of rabbits?— I think so.

430. Unless you were sure of annihilating the whole lot?— Yes, entirely ; and I find that even in this country. On some portions there were some little sand ridges with ferns. They would eat that. They worked their way into Cape Otway, and they have full possession.

431. By Mr. Richardson: Have they possession of Cape Otway now?— Oh, yes.

432. By the Chairman: Have you ever noticed rabbits follow any particular point of the compass when they migrate?— I found them always go North-East, I was on the Loughran country, between the Murray and the Loughran, where the settlers had put up a wire mesh, and you saw all along the nets young rabbits, thousands and thousands, left dead. The young rabbits had got into the mesh, and were caught there and dried in the sun.

433. And they were making in a North-Easterly direction?— Yes.

434. By Mr. Richardson: Was that when the mesh was an inch and a-half?— Yes.

435. By the Chairman: Are there any other peculiarities of habits you have noticed with rabbits when traveling?— Not that I know of, only they go in regular droves.