Warre.—0On the Black Rat. 348 
ANNE 
Several specimens of Chetopod worms ae both the Auckland Islands 
and Campbell Island are in the collection, but they cannot be determined 
until the New Zealand Chetopods have been examined. 
ECHINODERMATA. 
Asterias rupicola, Verrill, Bull. U.S. National Museum, No. 8, p. 71. 
var. levigatus, Hutton. 
Spines of the back obsolete. 
Several specimens from the Auckland Islands. 
I should have regarded this as a new species if one of the specimens had 
not shown a row of spines along the back and traces of a lateral row on 
each side, thus connecting the two forms. 
Art. XXXIX.—Note accompanying Specimens of the Black Rat (Mus rattus, L.) 
By Taytor Warre, Esq., of Glengarrie, Napier. 
Communicated by Prof. Hurron. 
[Read before the Otago Institute, 26th November, 1878.) 
Two of the rats were caught in 1876 in a field of oats which I was 
cutting, eighteen miles from the shipping, and so might be called country 
rats. Ithink I killed four. The two kept were an old male and a young 
female not quite full grown. I have found no others since. The skin I 
picked up at Napier port, alongside the shipping. 
It may be of some interest for me to state that the rats on the Canterbury 
plains in 1855 had regular warrens, and lived in communities. I have 
taken six and eight from one warren. The warren was not raised above 
the surface of the ground, but could be detected by the unusual greenness 
of the grass. There were a number of bolt holes within a circular radius 
of about four feet. At the time I was under the impression that they were 
ordinary rats; but not having seen this habit since or elsewhere, I now 
think that they must have been peculiar. In colour, I think, they resembled 
the common rat (Mus decumanus). We used to dig them up for the fun of 
seeing the dogs catch them. 
I was witness to the first migrations of the common mouse (Mus mus- 
culus) on three separate occasions. First, from about Christchurch to the 
plains at Oxford; second, from Oxford onwards over the first range of hills 
to country through which the Hokitika road now passes; and third, to the 
country bordering Lake Wakatipu. In all three places I lived a consider- 
able time, and never saw such a thing as a mouse, but the rats were legion, 
