19H Trait.siirtioJis. — Zooloyy. 



noticed no food of any kind in the stomacli round \vlii.cli 

 the \Yonns might have been wrapped. This would be about 

 the year 1861. 



If I remember riglitly it was some tlu-ee years before the 

 first mouse came. This place was ninety-odd miles from the 

 east coast, from which direction they would probablj* come. 

 They came just in the same manner as before described. I 

 have now given three undoubted cases of the migration of 

 large bodies of mice, and there is little doubt their natural in- 

 stinct caused them to travel immense distances, even putting 

 aside comparison with their diminutive bodies. How they 

 avoided or crossed large rivers I do not understand, for I have 

 caused a rat to swim in an ice- or snow-fed river, and the 

 coldness of the w'ater caused it to drown. If the migra- 

 tion occurred in the autumn the water in the rivers would be 

 both lower and much warmer. Up to the time of the mi- 

 gration not a mouse had been seen. Then one was reported as 

 seen in the grass, next day a few more, and then plenty all 

 over the place. The plan of these migrations is not carried 

 out after the manner of troops, marching shoulder to shoulder, 

 but each little beast is dodging along from cover to cover, 

 after the manner of sharp-shooters in advance or on the wings 

 of an advancing army. 



These periodic migrations of animals have no doubt been 

 the means by which large continents became stocked over 

 their whole area in those parts suitable to the particular 

 animal occupying them. What influences them, and how the}" 

 comnumicate with each other to appoint a day for a general 

 move, is a problem as yet unsolved. Things may occur round 

 about us which have no special significance to our under- 

 standing, imless by accident, as it were, the proper key is 

 placed before us. 



Eats in this district came into the liouse — whether the 

 same as those living under the Spaniards I do not know. At 

 the house of one of my neighbours living near Lake Te Anau, 

 some thirty miles away — for people then were few and far 

 between — they killed and salted a lot of beef for winter use, 

 and then hung the pieces by flax-strips to the round battens of 

 the thatched roof. When visiting there I was shown this large 

 array of joints, and told to examine them well. There seemed 

 nothing unusual about them, but on a piece being taken down 

 it proved to be only a shell of outer crust, the whole centre 

 having been eaten away by rats, wdio proved too cunning to 

 cut away the string by which the meat w^as suspended. After 

 the advent of mice the rats became less numerous, as was the 

 result in other cases ; they must have moved westward -into 

 the alpine ranges, before tlie army of mice. 



Eecentl_\' there has been a plague of rats in Lincolnshire, 



