86 WILD I. IKK IN NEW ZKAI.AXD. 



duced." I do not think these weiv native rats at all. 1'or ilu- latter 

 ate only vegetable matter, and these vermin seemed t. eat every- 

 thing. 



Dr. Hocken has an interesting staieinent in his " Earlv Historv 

 of New Zealand." as follows: " In ISld Messrs. Dodds and Davis. 

 of Sydney, established a fa>-tnin<_: settlement at Kiccarton. do- 

 where Christchurch now stands, and sent down James Herioi (or 

 Hariot) as manager, two farm hands, and two teams of bullocks. 

 They ploughed and cultivated about :'>() acres of land and secured 

 their crops. But in less than a year they decided to abandon all 

 further efforts. Numberless rats attacked the garnered stores, and 

 the bar at the mouth of the river or estuary proved a sad obstacle 

 to shipping whatever Lrrain had been spared by the scourge of 

 rats." We do not know now which species this was. though I 

 think it was probably the black rat. 



It is rather interesting that in 1S7U Sir Walter Buller wrote 

 a paper "On the New Zealand I'at." and he both figured and 

 described the European black rat (Mim 'nittti*). I have alreadv 

 said that this rat probably arrived with some of the tirst ships 

 which came to the country. OldHeld Thomas in a paper written 

 in ISDT in the " Proceedings of the Zoological Society " says that 

 the rats normally inhabiting ships are not. as is commonlv supposed. 

 Mi/a ihrunnuui*. liut Mint rnttux. and iti most cases these are of 

 the LMvy variety of that animal, with white belly, though the black 

 form may often be eamrht in the same ship as the grey. 



The black rat became enormously abundant in the early days 

 of settlement, and moved about the country in vast armies. The 

 settlers, bush fellers, and sawmill hands of fifty or seventy 

 a-j'o recorded how invasions of them in countless swarms used 

 to move through their district. climhin<_r everywhere, and eatinir 

 everything before them that was of a vegetable nature. Oldtield 

 Thomas, in the article already referred to. All the world 



over. MIL* mffiix takes to roofs and trees on meeting its for 

 midahle rival. .!///.< t/i-n/ninniix, to which it leaves the Butters and 



cellar*." 



In early days in Southland we often heard about rat invasions. 



the popular belief then WEB that these wen- migrations of native 



rats. I think tin-re is little doubt that they were black rats, which 



not necessarily black -coloured. I propose to <|iiote now from 



