230 Transactions.— Zoology. 
Sir George Grey informs me that he sent to the British Museum some 
grey “ Maori rats” which had been caught in the interior of the South Island 
in 1847 by Mr. Torlesse, and that Dr. Gray had said that they were identical 
with a rat found in Polynesia, by which he must have meant the black rat 
(Mus rattus) for none of the islands in the Pacific possess an indigenous rat. 
Dr. Buller also collected a considerable amount of evidence to show that the 
“ kiore-maori” was identical with a rat—now in the Colonial Museum— 
which he described (Trans. N.Z. Inst., III., p. 1) under the name of Mus 
nove-zealandie, but which is certainly Mus rattus. Mr. Colenso says (“ Proc. 
R. Soc. of Van Diemen’s Land,” 1851, p. 301), in a letter to R. Gunn, Esq., 
dated 4th Sept., 1850, that after considerable trouble he had procured two 
specimens of the native rat, which he describes as “smaller than our English 
black rat (M. rattus) and not unlike it.” Against this we have the statement 
of Dr. Dieffenbach, who says (“‘ New Zealand,” IIL., p. 185) that it was the 
English and not the Norway rat that killed off the “kiore-maori.” This, I 
think, must be a mistake, as all the Maoris attribute the destruction of the 
edible rat to the brown rat, and it could only have been from Maoris that 
Dr. Diefenbach got his information. Mr. Murray also states (“ Distr. of 
Mammals,” p. 277) that the Norway rat (M. decumanus) was not introduced 
into New Zealand in 1843, but he gives no evidence of the truth of this 
statement, and it is unquestionably erroneous.* The whole of the reliable 
evidence that we have, therefore, goes to prove that the Maori rat was no 
other than M. rattus. 
The so-called “ native dog” has been determined by Dr. Gray to be Canis 
Jamiliaris (“ Pro. Zool. Soc.,” 1868, p. 508), and not the Australian species, 
or variety, called Canis dingo, which is the strongest possible evidence of its 
being merely an escaped domestic breed ; indeed, I am not aware that any 
naturalist believes in an indigenous native dog except Dr. Haast, who has 
argued (Trans. N.Z. Inst., IV., p. 88) that a wild dog existed in New Zealand 
before the domesticated one, because in certain old Maori cooking places he 
has found remains of the dog but no gnawed bones, while in others, which he 
considers as of later date, he finds gnawed bones.t But I am not aware that 
* Since reading this paper Mr. Nichol has informed me that the brown rat was 
common in Nelson when he first arrived in the early part of 1842, and that he never saw 
any other kina there except a single —— of a very large and slightly striped variety. 
+ The skulls of dogs found in old Maori cooking-places prove undoubtedly that Canis 
iliaris exi pier Cook says 
(21st October, 1769) that the dogs were “small a d ugly,” and Mr. Anderson (‘‘ Cook’s 
3rd Voyage,” I., 153) calls it a ‘“‘sort of irae ” Capt. Cook also says in his first 
voyage that the dog was used for no other purpose than to eat. The fact that the 
bitants of the Friendly Islands have the same name (kuri) for the dog as the New 
Zealanders is strong evidence that ee a for if not they would 
