240 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. XXVIII. — Remarks on the Rats of New Zealand. 

 By Taylor White. 



[Read before the Hatvke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 8th October, 1894.] 



Many persons would inquire, " What is to be gained by the 

 study of the life-history of a rat ? " In answer, I would reply, 

 " The life-history of a rat will give a small portion of historical 

 evidence in regard to the land which it inhabits." 



This evidence is of the greater value where it extends 

 backward into the history of the past, whereon no written 

 records are existent. Take, for example, the land which we 

 New-Zealanders still speak of under the familiar term of 

 " Home," though many of us have never lived there, and others, 

 such as myself, never expect to see it again. 



In Professor W. Boyd Dawkins's " Monograph of the British 

 Pleistocene Mammalia " is a synoptical table giving nearly 

 the latest information on the distribution of the mammoth 

 and his associates in time, and from it and a few other 

 sources we gather that in the loams and gravels of Post- 

 pliocene age, and in the corresponding caves, there have been 

 found, together with the bones of the larger mammals (as elk, 

 horse, gigantic deer, lion, and ox), the minute remains of such 

 small creatures as the mouse (Mus musculus), the water-rat 

 (a vole, Arvicola amphibius), the short-tailed field-mouse (A. 

 agrestis), the long-tailed field-mouse (A. jyratensis), the mole, 

 the shrew-mouse (Sorex araneus), and the musk-rat {Sorex 

 moschatus) . From this list you will notice, in looking back- 

 ward on the far-away historical past of Britain, as illustrated 

 by osteological writings, that neither Mus rattus (the black 

 rat), which is considered to be the original rat of Europe, 

 nor Mus decumanus (the grey rat), commonly called the Nor- 

 way rat, which invaded Europe from the eastward during 

 recent times — that neither of these two rats lived in Britain in 

 those early times. As we have the knowledge of the late 

 arrival of the Norway rat in Europe, so we may assume the 

 black rat came forward, mysteriously impelled to emigrate by 

 that remarkable instinct which is inherent in all species of 

 rodents, but at so remote a date that written testimony to 

 the fact is wanting. 



It is probable that both species of rat made use of man as 

 a ferryman across the English Channel. But as yet I have 

 no evidence that the black rat has been found on board the 

 shipping, either in former days or at the present time. 



I am inclined to think that the black rat — which we have 

 now in New Zealand — is a dweller in the fields and forest, 



