GILLIES.. Notes on some Changes in the Fauna af Otago. 819 
seen by three or four of our people; but as no two gave the same description 
of it, I eannot say of what kind it is; all, however, agreed that it was about 
the size of a cat with short legs and of mouse-colour ; one of the seamen, and 
he who had the best view of it, said it had a bushy tail and was the most 
like a jackall of any animal he knew. The most probable conjecture is, that 
it is of a new species; be this as it may, we are now certain that this country 
is not so destitute of quadrupeds as was once thought." Nothing answerable 
to this animal has since been discovered, and the only mammals existing 
in this part of New Zealand when the settlers arrived were the rat, the wild 
pig, and the wild dog. The first of these—the rat (Mus decumanus) was 
met with everywhere in great numbers. It was not confined to the neigh- 
bourhood of the settlements—Maori or whaling—but wherever you pitched 
your camp away in the wilderness, where never human foot before trod, 
there rats were found as abundant as near the settlers’ homes. I remember 
distinctly on one occasion riding after a mob of cattle on a flat in the Taieri 
Plain near Otohiro in the year 1852, and seeing the rats running here and 
there in all directions from the horse’s feet. "When a new settler settled 
anywhere alone, the rats for a time were a perfect pest to him. They stole 
everything portable from him even to his candle-moulds, but after a time 
they became less and less numerous, and though they never disappeared 
wholly, yet nowhere in the country do rats swarm as they did in the early 
days. For years I was accustomed to camp out in new country miles away 
from any human being, but there were always plenty of rats. On account 
of the dampness of the soil we used to make our fern or grass beds, if 
possible, on a bottom layer of dry branches, and we got so accustomed to 
the rats that we never felt inconvenienced by feeling them running below 
us through the branches or even over the top of us as we lay in bed. So 
tame were they that when the candle was lit in the tent they would come 
peering in at the door or under the eurtain looking at you straight in the 
face with their earnest sharp gaze, and would only go when you shied 
something at them ; they were not long in returning. On more than one 
oecasion I have been present when men awoke with a rat lying right across 
their throat—we supposed for the sake of the warmth. There has been a 
great deal of discussion as to whether the rat of those days was the same 
species as the rat of to-day, or was what has been called the Maori rat. It 
is impossible now to determine ; this much is certain, that people then never 
thought of it as the same as the home rat, but always spoke of it as the 
native rat, and there is no doubt the rat of those days was not so ferocious 
in his habits nor so timid and wild as the rat that abounds now. My own 
belief is that they were essentially different animals but of course in the 
absence of any exact information such a belief goes for nothing. 
