308 TUTIRA 



procure specimens, it was pronounced to be extinct in the 'thirties, 

 but the forlorn honour of annihilation has so frequently been conferred 

 on New Zealand species that it must always be received with caution. 

 Very rare though this ancient breed may be, it has yet representatives 

 in the land ; it is neither extinct in New Zealand nor yet altogether 

 absent, I believe, even from Tutira. Although my knowledge is not 

 personal, and although again and again there has been confusion betwixt 

 this small creature and dead specimens of the immature black rat (Mus 

 rattus) dead specimens be it noticed I give the facts for what they 

 are worth. 



In 79 Harry Young, then engaged in a bush-falling contract on the 

 sea-cliffs of Arapawanui, caught, or rather secured, for the seizure met 

 with no resistance or attempted escape, what he has described to me as 

 a minute " rat." When first seen it was noticed to be feeding on the 

 yellow oval drupes fallen from a grove of karaka trees (Corynocarpus 

 loemgatus). The little animal, entirely unperturbed, was passed as a 

 curiosity from one to another of the half-dozen workers and then 

 liberated. Many years after this, during a drafting of sheep at the 

 Conical Hill yards in central Tutira, Jack Young, the brother of my 

 first informant, seated on the fence rails eating his lunch, noticed a 

 small dark-coloured "rat" with back "arched like a rainbow," as he 

 described it, feeding on the seeding docks. Crumbs which he threw 

 towards the little rodent were taken ; as in the former case, it was secured 

 without the faintest attempt to escape, and placed temporarily in one of 

 the long narrow coffee-tin "billies" carried by shepherds. This re- 

 ceptacle unfortunately was overturned, and the rat, which was to have 

 been brought in for my inspection, escaped. 



It is impossible to believe that such a mercurial lively animal as 

 Mus rattus should have at any period of its growth remained in the 

 vicinity of a drafting-yard where work was in progress, much less allow 

 itself to be caught with facility and handled without alarm. The rush 

 of driven sheep, the shouting of shepherds, the barking of dogs, would 

 scare the seven sleepers from somnolence ; emphatically the specimen 

 caught and then lost by Jack Young was not a representative of 

 Mus rattus. 



The third instance of the presence of a Jciore maori occurred in 1906. 

 One of my shearers, then resident on the wild rough country immediately 

 behind Maungaharuru, saw and secured another of these small rodents. 



