Notes on the Hawaiian Rat. 



By John F. G. Stokes. 



In the preceding paper Dr. Stone has undertaken to give the 

 writer more credit for his observations than is his due, such observa- 

 tions being mostly the result of accidental findings in the prosecution 

 of his regular work; and has further done him the honor of inviting 

 him to add his name as co-author, which it seemed to him more fitting 

 to decline, since his work is outside the field of systematic zoology. 



We much appreciate Dr. Stone's kindness in looking into the 

 subject of the native rat and describing the specimens, especially 

 as there is no mammalogist on the Museum's staff. 



The following notes may be added to those alread}' communi- 

 cated and may be of service in throwing more light on the habits 

 of the native rat. They include observations made since the des- 

 patch of the original rat material to Dr. Stone, and references to 

 the rat in the life of the Hawaiian people. 



On the island of Kauai, in 1916, the Weliweli and Mahaulepu 

 sand-dunes, in the neighborhood of some petrogh'phs the writer 

 was measuring, were visited. Some little time was spent on the 

 Weliweli dunes gathering fossil land shells, and incidentally a 

 fairly thorough but unsuccessful search for rat bones was made. 

 On the Mahaulepu dunes, three miles to the north, the visit was 

 briefer and the search confined to ethnological material and fossil 

 shells, since the Weliweli dunes had yielded no rat remains. A few 

 samples of sand containing the fossil shells from Mahaulepu were 

 brought back to Honolulu, and when Dr. CM. Cooke sifted the 

 same, he found a small manmial bone comparable in size to the rat 

 bones from Heleloa and Kahoolawe. Being a mammal bone, its size 

 would indicate that it probably belonged to the native rat species. 



The same year remains of rats were found at three places in 



the Wailuku sand-dunes, Maui. These dunes, used as pastures, 



extend about five miles to the northeast and southwest of the lao 



stream's stony bed. The stream, a mountain torrent subject to 



heavy floods, has swung back and forth, during its existence, over 



[26. J (II) 



