RECONSIDERATIONS 365 



New Zealand is in shape a long strip of territory pointing north 

 and south. Its central ranges are rugged and high ; the trend of settle- 

 ment accordingly has been along the seaboard : settlement has moved 

 north and south, not east and west. The line followed has been 

 followed for the common-sense reason that it is easier to move parallel 

 to a range than to traverse its heights. North and south has been 

 the line of least resistance selected in turn by man and beast, first 

 by Maori, later by European, and last by his introduced mammals 

 and avifauna. 



That has been the general direction followed ; particular modi- 

 fications have been the hill-top, the coastal and river-bed routes. The 

 way of each species, moreover, human or brute, has been affected by 

 special idiosyncrasies and predilections. 



The wish for warmth has confined the Maoris, the earliest aliens 

 of all, to the northern portion of the North Island, to coasts and 

 estuaries elsewhere, and in the interior to the thermal region. To a 

 later alien, the white man, ports and harbours have been essential. 

 The Anglo-Saxon, a hardier breed from a colder climate, has spread 

 not only along the coasts and over the northern parts of the North 

 Island, but over the interior everywhere of both islands. 



Aliens of a lower rank in the scale of nature have also followed 

 diverse routes, influenced by diverse desires. Breeds sedentary in their 

 original habits, as might have been expected, have shown similar 

 characteristics in New Zealand. Others have felt in fuller degree the 

 instinct that bids a race move forward. From treks of the latter sort 

 some curious facts may be gathered. They exhibit a fire of restlessness, 

 a passion of progress bred into the fibre of every member of the moving 

 mass. 



Rabbits turned down in the Wairarapa after a few seasons became 

 a curse, increasing and multiplying until many of the local squatters 

 were eaten out, their stations left desolate, and they themselves ruined. 

 Between that period and the date of their invasion of Tutira the hand 

 of man has lain heavy upon the rabbit. Everywhere also its advance 

 has been retarded by the attacks of harriers, moreporks, and wekas, 

 working not for eight hours a day like man, but for twenty -four. 

 Rabbits nevertheless have forged ahead thinly on a vast front, reaching 

 Tutira almost simultaneously by the hill-top, by the coastal route, and 

 by the line of the human highway. There was no strip of open land 



