248 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Island, and that they are now increasing, and gradually driving 

 the grey rat out " (M. decumanus. — T. W.). 



On the 24th August, 1894, Mr. Skinner wrote from 

 Hawera, — 



"In talking to an old chief of the Taranaki Tribe at 

 Te Namu, Opunake, called Tautai, I put the question to him 

 (by the help of our interpreter) about the native rat. He said 

 most emphatically that the old New Zealand rat was called 

 'kiore maori,' and that ' pohawaiki ' is the name of the 

 European rat (grey). 



" I write this at once, in case you are making use of the 

 previous information. I cannot understand why the natives 

 quoted in my last letter should give the names differently, but 

 this man Tautai is an undoubted authority on such things. 

 His age is about eighty years, and his faculties are very 

 clear. He is 'now, I think, the head chief of the Taranaki 

 Tribe." 



This correspondence is very interesting as showing the 

 extreme difficulty which arises in transmitting oral testimony 



on matters which were well known only fifty years ago in 



fact, at a time when few of the older generation still sur- 

 vive. 



Tautai, in saying that Mus maorium was named "kiore 

 maori," agrees with what Dr. Dieffenbach wrote on this sub- 

 ject ; but, owing to my desire not to put specially leading 

 questions in my inquiries, we have received no mention 

 from Tautai as to the M. rattus being named "kiore pakeha," 

 or any theory as to why the native rat became so scarce. On 

 the whole, I accept Dieffenbach's statement that the English or 

 black rat (M. rattus) was called "kiore pakeha," "the foreign 

 rat." This would go to prove that M. rattus came to New 

 Zealand some time previous to the arrival of M. decumanus, 

 the grey rat, because the Maoris told Dieffenbach that " kiore* 

 pakeha," which he understood to be M. rattus, had destroyed 

 " kiore maori." What surprises me in this connection is that 

 Dieffenbach seems entirely ignorant of what is now an asserted 

 fact, viz., that the grey rat has destroyed the black rat in 

 Europe. This would lead one to suppose that at that date, 

 1839-40, the battle of the two species had not been carried 

 out to the bitter end. Yet both he and the Eev. Mr. 

 Chapman seem to have been well acquainted with the Norway 

 rat. And I am led to the conclusion, as stated previously, 

 that M. decumanus was then in New Zealand, having come in 

 ships bringing the early colonists. 



In my paper, " On Eats and Mice," published in the Trans- 

 actions, Vol. xxiii., p. 200, which was read before your In- 

 stitute in 1890, is the following quotation from " Darwinism," 

 by A. R. Wallace: "The black rat (Mus rattus) was the 



