CAVE NEAE THE MOUTH OF THE MOKAU. 
CHAPTER XXV. 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
The Natural History of these islands, compared with that of 
other countries, appears very defective ; excepting a rat, which 
is now almost exterminated by the imported one, there are 
only reports of a kind of beaver, of whose existence we are 
not yet quite certain, although, very probably, it does exist in 
the Middle Island.* 
• A man named Seymour, of Otaki, stated that he had repeatedly seen an 
animal in the Middle Island, near Dusky Bay, on the south-west coast, which 
he called a musk-rat, from the strong smell it emitted. He said, its tail was 
thick, and resembled the ripe pirori, the fruit of the kiekie, which is not un¬ 
like in appearance the tail of a beaver. This account was corroborated by 
Tamihana te Rauparaha, who spoke of it as being more than double the size 
of the Norway rat, and as having a large flat tail. A man named Tom Crib, who 
