78 MAMMALIA 



ultimate destruction of those which still existed when trade was first 

 opened between Europeans and the natives, long after the Colonization of 

 New South Wales, may have been hastened by the introduction of the 

 European rat; but I am satisfied that before that time they had become 

 very scarce, and indeed I have been told by gentlemen who have lived in 

 the Northern part of this island for upwards of forty years, that they never 

 saw a specimen. 



My son, G. Stuart Thomson, says: "that the Maori rat was once 

 very abundant seems to be proved by the fact that the Maoris always 

 erected their store houses for food of various kinds on piles, as a 

 protection against the depredations of rats. (I think this was the 

 custom before Europeans landed — cf. Maning's Old New Zealand.)" 

 I think, however, that it may have been protection against the black 

 rat which was sought, and that they may have got the idea from 

 early European settlers. 



It has been suggested that the disappearance of the Kiore Maori or 

 native ra:t has led to the diminution, and almost to the extinction of the 

 Laughing Owl (Sceloglaux albifacies). Sir Walter BuUer says : " The fact 

 that the extinction of the native rat has been followed by the almost 

 total disappearance of this singular bird appears to warrant the con- 

 clusion that the one constituted the principal support of the other." 



Mr W. W. Smith, writing in the N. Z. Journal of Science, says : 



The suggestion of Dr BuUer. . .is an important one; and my researches 

 among the rocks at Albury, and experiments with the living birds in 

 captivity, are greatly in support of this. In several of the crevices where I 

 captured them, I found an ancient conglomerate of exuviae ranging from 

 three to twelve inches thick. From the under surface and through the 

 mass to nearly the upper surface, this conglomerate is thickly studded 

 with Owl's castings, composed entirely of light brown hair (which is un- 

 questionably that of the Kiore Maori) and small bones. The castings more 

 recently deposited among the rocks are composed of eljrtra and legs of 

 beetles. 



* Black Rat {Mus rattus; Epimys rattus) 



It is impossible to say when the black rat first came to New 

 Zealand, but it probably arrived with some of the first ships which 

 came to the country. I have already suggested that Captain Cook's 

 ships introduced them. Yates in 1835 says: "The natives tell us that 

 rats were introduced in the first ship, by Tasman." Oldfield Thomas 

 (Proc. Zool. Soc, 1897, p. 857) states that "the rats normally inhabit- 

 ing ships are not, as is commonly supposed, Mus decumanus, but Mus 

 rattus, and in most cases are the grey variety of that animal, with 

 white belly, though the black form may often be caught in the same 

 ship as the grey." For a long time great confusion existed in the 

 minds of most of those who observed and wrote of rats in this 



