CARNIVORA 81 



great." Another is the excessive increase in numbers producing an 

 intense struggle for existence. (His conclusions are somewhat at 

 variance with Rutland's who did not think that hunger was an 

 impelling cause.) 



" I have examined many of these animals, and have not found a single 

 female. One of my neighbours has examined two hundred of them ; and 

 a Maori, at the pa beyond Wakapuaka, one hundred, with the same negative 

 result. Some females have, however, been taken; and in one case they 

 were found breeding." "He is more like a big field-mouse than a Norway 

 rat, and besides being considerably smaller, he is slightly darker in colour, 

 and less malodorous. He climbs trees and flax plants, and is phytophagous 

 rather than carnivorous." 



Hutton in 1887 says: 



The rat appears to have invaded Picton at the end of March, and to 

 have suddenly disappeared by the 2Oth April. Old Maoris recognized it 

 as the rat they used to eat in former times, and said that swarming on the 



low lands periodically was always characteristic of it These rats were 



often noticed climbing trees. In the Pelorus, where they stopped longer, 

 they built nests, like birds, in trees. 



Hutton at that time thought the Picton rat was a new species, and 

 he named it Mus maorium. He says: "This rat is certainly different 

 from Mus huegeli, Thomas, from Fiji; and I should think from Mus 

 exulans, Peale, also, but I have seen no full description of that species." 

 Kingsley in 1894 records it as nesting on the branches of small trees, 

 four to five feet from the ground, near Totaranui, and gives examples 

 from Motueka, Riwaka, Collingwood, Nelson and Taranaki. I have 

 myself seen tall thorn hedges at Whangarei full of their nests, large 

 shapeless structures, which at first I thought must be house-sparrows 

 taken to hedge-building. 



Marriner reports that he met with grey rats at North West Bay, 

 Campbell Island, which Waite thinks were probably Mus rattus. The 

 black rat is at the present time (1916) extraordinarily common about 

 Christchurch ; Mr Speight the curator informs me that Canterbury 

 Museum is infested with these animals. A good deal of damage said 

 to be done to orchards by opossums is almost certainly the work of 

 the black rat. In some districts they destroy the native vegetation; 

 and have been found to eat the roots of the larger Umbelliferae, as 

 Ligusticum, Angelica and Aciphylla\ the tubers of Gastrodia Cunning- 

 hamii; the inflorescence of the kie-kie (Freycinetia Banksit) and of the 

 Nikau palm; and the fruit of the native passion-flower (Passiflora 

 tetrandrd). 



