THE RABBIT PLAGUE.--One of the strangest freaks of Nature of which we
know as effecting the wholesale destruction of wild animals by disease
is the rabbit plague. In the northern wilderness, and particularly
central Canada, where rabbits exist in great numbers and supply the
wants of a large carnivorous population, this plague is well known, and
among trappers and woodsmen is a common topic of conversation. The best
treatment of the subject is to be found in Ernest T. Seton's "Life
Histories of Northern Animals", Vol. I, p. 640 et seq. From this I
quote:

"Invariably the year of greatest numbers [of rabbits] is followed by a
year of plague, which sweeps them away, leaving few or no rabbits in the
land. The denser the rabbit population, the more drastically is it
ravaged by the plague. They are wiped out in a single spring by
epidemic diseases usually characterized by swellings of the throat,
sores under the armpits and groins, and by diarrhea."

"The year 1885 was for the country around Carberry 'a rabbit year,' the
greatest ever known in that country. The number of rabbits was
incredible. W.R. Hine killed 75 in two hours, and estimated that he
could have killed 500 in a day. The farmers were stricken with fear that
the rabbit pest of Australia was to be repeated in Manitoba. But the
years 1886-7 changed all that. The rabbits died until their bodies
dotted the country in thousands. The plague seemed to kill all the
members of the vast host of 1885."

The strangest item of Mr. Seton's story is yet to be told. In 1890 Mr.
Seton stocked his park at Cos Cob, Conn., with hares and rabbits from
several widely separated localities. In 1903, the plague came and swept
them all away. Mr. Seton sent specimens to the Zoological Park for