CHAP. XXI 



NEW ZEALAND 



475 



often find their way on board ships. But within the last 

 few years many skulls of a rat have been obtained from the 

 old Maori cooking-places, and from a cave associated with 

 moa bones ; and Captain Hutton, who has examined them, 

 states that they belong to a true Mus, but differ from the 

 Mtts rattus. This animal might have been on the islands 

 when the Maoris first arrived, and in that case would be 

 truly indigenous ; while the Maori legend of their " an- 

 cestors " bringing the rat from their Polynesian home may 

 be altogether a myth invented to account for its presence 

 in the islands, because the only other land mammal which 

 they knew — the dog — was certainly so brought. The 

 question can only be settled by the discovery of remains of 

 a rat in some deposit of an age decidedly anterior to the 

 first arrival of the Maori race in New Zealand.^ 



Much more interesting is the reported existence in the 

 mountains of the South Island of a small otter-like animal. 

 Dr. Haast has seen its tracks, resembling those of our 

 European otter, at a height of 8,000 feet above the sea in 

 a region never before trodden by man ; and the animal 

 itself was seen by two gentlemen near Lake Heron, about 

 seventy miles due west of Christchurch. It was described 

 as being dark brown and the size of a large rabbit. On 

 being struck at with a whip, it uttered a shrill yelping 

 sound and disappeared in the water.^ An animal seen so 

 closely as to be struck at with a whip could hardly have 

 been mistaken for a dog— the only other animal that it 

 could possibly be supposed to have been, and a dog would 

 certainly not have " disappeared in the water." This account, 

 as well as the footsteps, point to an aquatic animal ; and if 

 it now frequents only the high alpine lakes and streams, 

 this might explain why it has never yet been captured. 

 Hochstetteralso states that it has a native name — Waitoteke 

 — a striking evidence of its actual existence, while a gentle- 

 man who lived many years in the district assures me that 



^ See BiiUer, " On the New Zealand Rat," Trans, of the N. Z. Institute 

 (1870), Vol. III. p. 1, and Vol. IX. p. 348 ; and Hutton, On the Geogra- 

 phical Relations of the New Zealand Fauna," Trans. N, Z. Instit. 1872, 

 p. 229. 



2 Hochstetter's New Zealand, p. 161, note. 



