NATURAL HISTORY NOTES IN NEW ZEALAND. 174 
and these still greater pests were dumped into the country. Nota 
single shipment cost less than £3 per head, owing to the great 
mortality and the cost of live pigeons for food en route. The remedy 
was effectual. In 1886 I saw good sheep country swarming with 
rabbits, scarcely a blade of grass being visible. In 1896 I went 
through the same sheep runs and, in a ride of 60 miles, it would 
have been difficult to find a rabbit, whilst the land was as heavily 
stocked with sheep as it had been previous to the advent of the rodent. 
But the saddest feature of the transaction is the practical 
extermination of those wonderful ground birds of New Zealand by 
the stoats and weasels. When rabbits became scarce, food had to be 
sought elsewhere, and the easiest means at hand to gratify the thirst 
for blood were the ground birds. Since then it has been no 
uncommon spectacle to see stoats and weasels appeasing their hunger 
upon dead fish left on the foreshore by the tide. In spite of heavy 
penalties for the protection of the natural enemy of the rabbit, 
settlers, who keep poultry, give very little respite to the carnivora. 
Thus the balance of nature may be once more restored in time, but 
never can the ground birds be reinstated to their proper heritage. 
Thousands of ferrets have been bred and liberated in rabbit 
infested districts, but they have never been found to multiply. 
Reared for many generations in captivity they have failed to adapt 
themselves to a wild life, and they seem to die out in a comparatively 
short time. 
After this digression upon the acclimatized furry pests I must 
pass briefly to the acclimatized feathered pests. 
It will be necessary for me to refer to the British and other 
birds which have been introduced at various times as affecting the 
welfare of the original feathered natives. 
Pheasants have been liberated, and, in some closely settled 
districts, have done well, affording much sport. But in the province 
