564 APPENDIX C 



in the Hawke's Bay district. No fewer than seven chapters deal with the 

 naturaUsed plants, and seven more with naturalised animals. Much of the 

 book consequently covers some of the ground gone over by me, but Mr 

 Guthrie-Smith has given much greater detail regarding the introduction 

 and spread of the species referred to than I have been able to do. Very 

 many of his conclusions are identical with my own, and the book is a most 

 valuable contribution to the biological literature of New Zealand. Unfor- 

 tunately it has no index, and the table of contents only very partially 

 supplies this want. 



Without in any way attempting to summarise the information contained 

 in this book, I here record a few of the facts, taking the various animals 

 and plants in the order referred to in my own work. 



Much valuable information is given as to the remarkable tracks made 

 over the unbroken country by sheep (p. 181), while an interesting instance 

 of melanism in sheep is recorded at p. 355, et seq. Each patch of bush 

 and scrub, chiefly on Eastern Tutira, maintained its little herd of wild 

 sheep. About 1892 a small flock of four or five black sheep was noticed 

 on a block in the north-west of the Tutira district. In about ten or twelve 

 years the flock had greatly increased, and when the land on which they 

 had been running came to be cleared and fenced, some 220 wild sheep were 

 rounded up and yarded. Of these over 90 were black, the larger number 

 with white tips to their tails ; about five or six were piebalds, and the rest 

 white. All of these were pure merino, the rams carrying magnificent heads. 

 Mr Guthrie-Smith's account of this flock and the explanation are worth 

 careful study. 



At pp. 308-9, four cases are given of the capture of rats, which were 

 claimed to be of the species which occurred in New Zealand prior to 

 Captain Cook's first visit, viz., the Kiore maori, or Mus exulans. Three 

 of these captures, dating between 1879 ^^^ 1906, cannot be verified; it 

 is possible that the animals caught belonged to this species. But the 

 fourth specimen, captured by Captain Donne "in the forest path between 

 Waikaremoana and Waikareiti not many years ago," seems from its photo- 

 graph to be an example of the Maori rat. Though nearly extinct in New 

 Zealand, it would appear that a very few specimens still survive in wild 

 rough country. 



In 1886 and succeeding years, stoats, ferrets and weasels were liberated 

 in numbers in the Wairarapa district, and by 1901 they had reached the 

 neighbourhood of Tutira. "Between 1902 and 1904 they had overrun the 

 country between Tutira and the southern edge of the Poverty Bay Flat. 

 Everywhere I heard of them. On every road and new-cut bridle-track 

 during these two seasons I met or overtook weasels hurrying northwards, 

 travelling as if life and death were in the matter. Three or four times also 

 I came on weasels dead on the tracks. These weasels, alive or dead, were 

 or had been travelling singly.... For a short period weasels overran like 

 fire the east coast between Tutira and Poverty Bay, and then like fire died 

 out.... Nowadays on Tutira I do not hear from shepherds or fencers of 

 the weasel once in six years. I have not seen one for twenty years. There is 



