206 Transactions.—4Z oology. 
black rat, while the larger animal would be simply the European black rat 
modified to some extent by climate and other differences during the course 
of perhaps a hundred years. 
The statement is frequently made that the Maori ratis extinet. Surely this 
is a gratuitous assumption. It is at all events an assertion very difficult to 
prove, inasmuch as it virtually involves a universal negative. That one 
species of the so-called Maori rat may have disappeared before the in- 
vaders, I have no difficulty in granting. But there are wide tracts in New 
Zealand where there is room enough for millions of rats to disport them- 
selves without let or hindrance of pakeha or pakeha rat. Old settlers in 
this province who knew the interior 40 years ago, and have known it ever 
since, tell me that during the whole of that period a small species of rat 
has been commonly met with in the bush at all altitudes. One of our 
members (Mr. Browning) has seen it when on his professional duties at a 
height of 4,500 feet. Mr. Saxton says it climbs trees. Some people say it 
lives in them. It certainly eats fruit and vegetation, and is a very clean 
wholesome animal compared with the brown rat of our civilization. It lives 
largely amongst the fern. Why not call it by way of distinction the Fern 
Rat. Understand me, I do not look upon this as another variety additional 
to those I have mentioned, I believe this is the true Maori rat—the Mus 
maorium of Professor Hutton—the Kiore Maori—the rat with whose presence 
we now are so largely favoured. 
It is fair to say, per contra, that Professor Haast in his ‘“ Report of 
Exploration in the Western part of the Nelson Province, 1861," states that 
although the native rat (which he calls ** Mus rattus’’) was said in some 
places still to exist in large numbers, he failed to find any ; while, on the other 
hand, the Kiore Pakeha was found everywhere in large numbers and of 
large size. 
It must also be said that mention has been made more than once of 
some species of rat living in communities—like rabbits living in their 
burrows, or ants on their hills. The deserted holes were frequently 
found on the Canterbury plains and in the Nelson interior some years 
ago, but there is no evidence to show what species of rat inhabited 
them. 
Well then you see the opinion to which I incline is that our rat— 
whether the true Kiore Maori or not—is an indigenous rodent, the same 
which Professor Hutton calls the Mus maoriwm, and which we may familiarly 
name the Fern Rat, in reference to its usual habitat. So far from its being 
extinct, this rat, as Dr. Hector says Trans., vol. xvi, p. 555), “ is very 
common in the bush country,” feeding on the bark of the patete, and 
relishing the honey of the puriri, by which it is frequently stupefied and 
