THE INVASION FROM THE SOUTH 335 



roosts, were rife in the daily papers, perhaps for squatters had 

 imported the horrid vermin most prominently in papers hostile to 

 the sheep-farmer interest. At the time I took considerable trouble in 

 the investigation of several of these stories of attacks on grown folk, 

 and believe that some at least were true, or at any rate that much 

 evidence of a circumstantial sort could be adduced in support of them. 1 



The earliest weasel was seen on Tutira in 1902. Between that date 

 and 1904 they had overrun the country between Tutira and the southern 

 edge of the Poverty Bay Flat. Everywhere I heard of them. On every 

 road and new-cut bridle-track during these two seasons I met or over- 

 took weasels hurrying northwards, travelling as if life and death were in 

 the matter. Three or four times also I came on weasels dead on the tracks. 

 These weasels, alive or dead, were or had been travelling singly. The 

 only party I heard of was reported by Mr J. B. Kells, then managing 

 Tangoio. In firing a small dried-up marsh he dislodged a large number ; 

 according to his statement, they "poured out" of the herbage. For a 

 short period weasels overran like fire the east coast between Tutira and 

 Poverty Bay, and then like fire died out. I traced them by personal 

 observation to the very edge of the Poverty Bay Flats, then, like the 

 Great Twin Brethren, " away they passed and no man saw them more." 

 Nowadays on Tutira I do not hear from shepherds or fencers of the 

 weasel once in six years. I have not seen one for twenty years. There 

 is something ridiculous in the fact that the weasel should have arrived 

 on the station before the rabbit, and that later, when rabbits had 

 become numerous, weasels should have practically passed out of the 

 district that the cure, in fact, should have preceded the disease. 2 



1 I have myself known seven or eight healthy young lambs killed in a night within a 

 short distance of one another, each with a small puncture in the throat. 



2 Returning in March 1919, after five years absence owing to the war, I found that 

 pukeko (Porphyrio melanonotus) and weka (Ocydromus greyi) were practically gone from 

 Tutira ; the former, which used to feed in hundreds about the swamps, had been reduced 

 to three pairs on one spot and three pairs on another ; the numbers of the weka had 

 declined in an equal ratio. There had been no poisoning with grain and no shooting, for 

 during these anxious years ray brother was never away from the place. The damage, I 

 found, was generally attributed to weasels ; that they had been seen here and there was 

 cited in corroboration of this belief. It may be so, but there are facts that do not 

 dovetail into this theory. I say nothing of not having personally seen either weasels or 

 signs of weasels during twelve months since my return, but why, if they have destroyed 

 weka and pukeko, have the numbers of the small pied tit (Petroica toitoi) hugely, astonishingly 

 increased during these five years ? Why have Californian quail certainly also increased ? 

 Why do starlings, blackbirds, thrushes, minahs still as formerly swarm on the station ? Possibly 

 light may be thrown on the problem by remembering that twice during my residence great 

 irruptions of weka have passed through Tutira. Is it possible that for a third time wekas 

 may have, as formerly, followed a mouse trek and not returned ? Is it possible that for some 



