AND OTHER BIRDS 151 



The grey species works, in its own field, an 

 equal havoc. Whilst searching for Bittern, 

 Shoveller, and Rail on the mud-flats and 

 lagoons of Hawke's Bay, all outlying nests 

 of the two last named were found with eggs 

 broken and sucked. The nests with whole eggs 

 and they were few and far between were 

 always got near the cottages built on the dry 

 edges of these flat lands. The rats, in fact, were 

 so numerous, that the presence of man was a 

 protection to the birds, and his cats and dogs an 

 actual boon, and nothing can more fully express 

 the havoc wrought than this statement of fact. 

 About these lagoons and mud-flats perfect armies 

 of rats seemed to have been trampling, and every- 

 where, in addition to ruined eggs, broken shell- 

 fish bore witness to their omnivorous 

 appetite. The marvel, indeed, to me, was 

 how, for one season, even, any birds whatso- 

 ever could continue to exist. Again in 

 a part of Stewart Island where the Wekas 

 have been killed, I have seen the eggs of a 

 colony of Terns entirely destroyed in a single 

 night; and on rat-haunted islands also, in that 

 region, have, hour after hour, got only nests 

 plundered and containing broken shell. 



After long experience I am convinced that 

 at Tutira, the two species of rat do more 

 damage to my local avifauna, than shooting, 

 fires, dogs, cats, weasels, and birds of prey 

 -combined. It is not fair shooting that is making 

 our Duck, Pukeko, and other game so scarce. 

 It is, at least to a considerable extent, because 

 the country is over-run by rats. Even yet, 

 however, if we but choose to do so, not only 

 the species known to be in danger but also 



