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CHAPTER XXXIV. 



THE INVASION FROM THE SOUTH. 



WE can now pass to the history of aliens which I have myself seen 

 establish themselves on the run. We can deal first with strangers 

 reaching us from the south, from the Wairarapa and Hastings. 



From the former better that a millstone had been hanged about 

 that district's neck, and that it had been cast into the depths of the sea 

 have come rabbits and weasels. 



From the Hawke's Bay Acclimatisation Society, on the other hand, 

 nothing harmful has emanated ; on the contrary, that society highly 

 disapproved of the liberation of vermin ; it could do no more, however, 

 than protest and offer rewards for every weasel, stoat, or polecat taken 

 in its domains ; but, alas ! the harm had been done not all the poppy 

 and mandragora, not all the guineas in the world, could stay the 

 plague. 



Taking, first of all, species liberated in Hawke's Bay, evidence is 

 unanimous that the goldfinch (Carduelis elegans) proved able at once 

 to adapt himself to his new surroundings. It would, in truth, have 

 been surprising had the bird not flourished ; fern-crushing had passed 

 the experimental stage ; the far - famed fertile plains surrounding 

 Hastings had been drained; bush-felling, though still in its infancy, 

 had been proved a success. Everywhere fern, flax, and forest were 

 giving place to English grass and those self-imported weeds that flourish 

 with peculiar luxuriance in virgin soils. Amongst them were two plants 

 particularly affected by the goldfinch the one the sow-thistle, the other 

 the prickly thistle. On every run in Hawke's Bay during the 'seventies 

 and 'eighties the latter flourished over hundreds of acres. 1 



1 I myself have seen, early in the twentieth century, on the wooded ranges of Poverty 

 Bay, an equally luxuriant growth. These hills were composed of fertile mar,], enriched further- 



