242 Transactions. — Zoology. 



but at a date previous to the coming of M. decumanus to Europe 

 and the extermination of its kindred in England ? Although I 

 have written to several gentlemen who have access to good 

 libraries I am still unable to fix the date when the black rat 

 disappeared from Europe. And this question still remains 

 unanswered— namely, Could the black rat be brought by the 

 early whalers ? From the Chatham Island episode we might 

 suppose that such could not have been the case. How, then, 

 did it come ? Is it from the shipwreck of a Spanish or Portu- 

 guese ship many, many years before the time of Captain Cook? 

 — a ship which came ashore at the northern part of New Zea- 

 land, and from which landed part of the crew—pero, a dog, and 

 " kiore pakeha," the black rat. This may have been the case. 

 On my arrival in Canterbury (South Island) in 1855 I found 

 grey rats, the M. decumanus, and most likely also the native 

 rat " kiore maori," living in small communities on the grassy 

 plains : these I did not then distinguish from their larger 

 confrere, both being greatly of the same colour. Having asked 

 what the Maori rat was like, I was answered by those who 

 had preceded me to the country that it was of a red colour ; 

 therefore my search was for many years the looking for a red 

 rat, something like the colour of a squirrel. 



Although I lived in different parts of the South Island for 

 ten years I never saw a black rat, but on coming to Hawke's 

 Bay I noticed them within three months' time. As the Bluff 

 Harbour, in the South Island, was a place of call for whalers, 

 if the bd ack rat had been with them then, I should have 

 found black rats there, and at Lake Wakatipu in 1860. So I 

 do not think this rat was on the whale-ships, but that they 

 brought the Norway rat (M. decumanus). But the black 

 rat is now found in Westland and Nelson, and so must 

 surely have arrived by shipping in recent times to those 

 places. 



Dr. Ernst Dieffenbach, in 1840, would seem to have found 

 the black rat in great plenty in the north of New Zealand, 

 and from what he says it seems probable that this rat had 

 been known to the Maoris for many years, and long previous 

 to the introduction of the Norway rat. But I will let this 

 traveller speak for himself : " There exists a frugivorous rat 

 called 'kiore maori' (indigenous rat) by the natives, which they 

 distinguish from the English rat (not the Norway rat), which 

 is introduced, and called 'kiore pakea ' [sic] (strange rat). 

 On the former they fed very largely in former times ; but it 

 has now become so scarce, owing to the extermination carried 

 on against it by the European rat, that I could never obtain 

 one. A few, however, are still found in the interior — viz., at 

 Botorua, where they have been seen by the Bev. Mr. Chap- 

 man, who describes them as being much smaller than the 



