92 WILD I.IFK IN NEW ZEALAND. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



RODEXTIA MICE AND GUI NKA- PIGS. 



THE MOUSE (Mus musculus). 



IT is probable that the mouse was introduced into New Zealand 

 early in last century, yi't the first notice of the appearance of 

 this familiar little animal in the North Island is recorded by 

 Dieffenbach, who wrote as late as 1839. Pastor Wohlers, long ;i 

 missionary working among the Natives on Ruapuke, in Foveaux 

 Strait, states that mice were first brought to that island in the 

 "Elizabeth Henrietta," which was wrecked there in 1824, and that 

 even as late as 187:5 they continued to be known as "henrieti;. 

 The late Mr. Robert Gillies, who arrived in Otago in 1848, writing 

 in 1872, says that it is quite certain there were no mice in Otago 

 in 1852; but a year or perhaps two years after they were noticed, 

 in Dunedin first. They quickly travelled south, but the Molyneux 

 stopped their migration for a time, and it was considerably later 

 before Molyneux Island (Inch-Clutha) was touched by them. Taylor 

 Wliite speaks of mice appearing in the Canterbury Plains in the 

 early days of settlement (from 1855 onwards) "suddenly in 

 thousands." In 1866, during a discussion which arose at a meet- 

 in.ir of the Canterbury Acclimatization Society as to the reported 

 destruction of small birds by hawks, Mr. W. T. L. Travers reported 

 " that he had opened a large number of hawks, and in all cases 

 found their food to consist entirely of mice and grasshopp. 



The mouse has never been found very far from the haunts of 

 men, either in this country or elsewhere. It is abundant in all 

 settled parts, and is also common on the Auckland. Antipodes, 

 and Campbell Islands. Though it follows man so closely, it 

 quently stays in localities where men have been and have left, and 

 there it is apt to have a bad time. Mr. Philpott. writing to me 

 on the 2nd January. I'.H.^. said. "There is a plague of mice in 

 the district west of the Waiau. From Blued i IT to the Knife and 

 Steel, near the Big River and beyond, each hut [the Government 

 huts on the now abandoned telephone track to Puysei_ r ur Point | 

 was overrun with them. And not onlv at the huts, but on the 



