THE STOCKING OF TUTIRA BY ALIEN ANIMALS 309 



Amongst the natives whatever may be the value of their opinion it 

 was accepted as one of the long-lost race. It was taken down to the 

 coast, and there, living inside a buggy lamp, was for some time exhibited 

 as a curiosity. 



In each of these three cases of capture there was the same insistence 

 on the particular trait of absolute fearlessness and tameness, terms which 

 may well be synonymous with stupidity, the word used by early writers 

 quoting memories of Maoris who had themselves eaten the dainty, un- 

 eviscerated, stuffed with its natural diet of native berries. 1 



Prior to 1730 thirty-nine years, that is, before Captain Cook dropped 

 anchor in New Zealand waters the old English black rat (Mus rattus) 

 held undisputed possession of Britain ; it was only after the date men- 

 tioned that the brown or Hanoverian rat (Mus norvegicus) appeared. 

 These species, however, as events were speedily to prove, will not live to- 

 gether, the one dominates and destroys the other ; it is therefore in the last 

 degree unlikely that Mus rattus and Mus norvegicus reached New Zealand 

 cribbed, cabined, and confined in the same vessel. The limited space in 

 such cockle-shells as the Endeavour and Resolution, and the duration of 

 the voyage over 300 days alike negative the idea ; the brown would 

 have devoured his milder-mannered congener. It is, in fact, impossible 

 that the black rat could have reached the colony otherwise than in the 

 company of Cook, for by the date sealers had established themselves in 

 New Zealand waters Mus norvegicus had overrun Britain and had 

 destroyed his rival. When, therefore, the circumnavigator passed 

 through Queen Charlotte Sound and careened his little vessel in Ship 

 Cove, and later, when he moored the Resolution in a small creek " so near 

 the shore as to reach it with her prow," the rats which vacated the vessels 

 were doubtless representatives of the black species. Eats had reached 

 New Zealand ; they began at once their evil work. Cook himself has 

 left it on record that on revisiting his clearing in the forest he found 

 that " although the radishes and turnips had seeded, the peas and beans 

 had been eaten by rats." We have still, however, to trace Mus rattus 

 to Tutira. 



1 The likelihood that we still have representatives of this exceedingly rare little animal on 

 Tutira is increased by the capture in the district of a fourth specimen by Captain Donne. 

 Captain Donne's description of the conduct of his "rat" after capture bears out the testimony 

 already given of the absolute fearlessness of the breed. It was taken in the forest path between 

 Waikaremoana and Waikareiti not many years ago. 



