Gillies. — Notes on some Changes in the Fauna af Otago. 319 



seen by three or four of our people ; but as no two gave the same description 

 of it, I cannot 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, ive are now certain that this country 

 is not so destitute of quadi'upeds 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 whahng — 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 aflat in the Taieri 

 Plain near Otohho in the year 1852, and seeing the rats runnmg here and 

 there in all dh-ections 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 

 everythhig 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 v/ould come 

 peering in at the door or under the curtain 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 

 occasion I have been present when men awoke with a rat lying right across 

 theh 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. 



