Photographed by Geoff Charles. The disease myxomatosis in rabbits is caused by a virus. During the early 1950s, the disease spread from France to Britain and resulted in a massive decrease in the rabbit population. In 1954 it was confirmed that myxomatosis had arrived in Montgomeryshire; the outbreak being at Llanbryn-mair, Aberhosan and Penybont Fawr. One lane was strewn with a hundred dead and dying rabbits every 100 yards.