Wild Life in New Zealand. Part I. Mammalia. / New Zealand Board of Science and Art. Manual No. 2.

One of the most famous animals of this group, one with a world-wide reputation, is “Pelorus Jack,” the pilot-dolphin of the French Pass, known for many years to every traveller between Wellington and Nelson. This famous “whale” has been photographed scores of times, and his general form and large dorsal fin are well known. I am indebted to Messrs. Sharland and Co. (Limited) for permission to reproduce the photograph shown in Fig. 8. For something like twenty years he met every steamer that came through the French Pass, whether by day or night. His “station,” if one may use the word, was somewhere off the mouth of Pelorus Sound, and as soon as a passing vessel got within a mile or two of this region “Jack” would be seen racing along until he was alongside, when he would escort the boat for some distance before racing off again. Among various yarns told about him was one that he used to rub himself on the vessels, presumably either for a scratch on the back or to divest himself of some of the fish-lice which frequently infest whales. I have seen him on several occasions, and never to greater advantage than when he accompanied the little trawling-steamer, the “Doto,” as we were going into the French Pass. He kept alongside and played round the bows for over five minutes, and then sheered off to visit a larger vessel which was coming in from Cook Strait. In Hutton and Drummond’s “Animals of New Zealand” he was stated to be a Beluga, or White Whale, and was identified as Delphinapterus leucas; but this is purely a northern species. Waite considers it is a Risso’s Dolphin (Grampus griseus), and says “the general colour of the animal is grey, curiously marked with scratch-like lines, which are probably caused by the cuttlefishes which form the staple food of the grampus.” In a pamphlet published in 1911 by James Cowan on “Pelorus Jack” it is stated that “he is a dolphin of a bluish-white colour, tinged with purple and yellow, and with irregular brown-edged scratch-like lines covering the upper surface of his body. His flippers are dark in hue, mottled with grey. He is about 14 ft. in length—as nearly as can be judged, for he doesn’t stay still very long—and he is blunt of nose, humped of forehead, with a high falcate (or scythe-shaped) dorsal fin and a narrow fluked tail.” By an Order in Council of the 29th September, 1904, it is notified that for five years from that date it would not be lawful for any person “to take the fish or mammal of the species commonly known as Risso’s Dolphin (Grampus griseus) in the waters of Cook Strait, or of the bays, sounds, and estuaries adjacent thereto.” Any person committing a breach of this regulation was liable to a fine of not less than £5 nor more than £100. This regulation was renewed from time to time, an Order in Council of the 24th April, 1911, extending it for a further period of five years. The regulation was aimed solely at the protection of “Pelorus Jack,” the only individual marine animal, I believe, which has thus secured Government protection.

The Maoris believe that Kaikai-a-waro, as they call “Pelorus Jack,” has been known to their race for some three centuries, and a considerable body of legend has grown up about him. One European skipper, Captain Turner, of Nelson, met with a big white “fish” in Pelorus Sound nearly fifty years ago, and he thinks this is the same as the whale which afterwards took up its station towards the French Pass.

It was stated in 1911 that the carcase of “Pelorus Jack,” bitten by sharks, had been washed up on D’Urville Island. It was found, however, that the animal discovered there was a bottle-nosed whale. Meanwhile it is a fact that the “pilot-whale” has not been seen for some years, and whether he has “passed out” or merely shifted his quarters no one knows.

The list of New Zealand whales is not yet exhausted. Mention has just been made of the Bottle-nose (Prodelphinus obscurus), which is not unfrequently met with. A more interesting animal is the Killer Whale (Orca gladiator), often spoken of as the “grampus,” a word which itself is a contraction of the French grand poisson, or big fish. The killer is marked with contrasting bands of white or yellow upon a black body-colour. It is a fairly large species, growing to a length of 30 ft. It is a powerful and rapacious whale, and it is stated that as many as thirteen porpoises and fourteen seals were taken from the stomach of one of them. This is a large order, and perhaps the culprit died of a surfeit; if not, it certainly deserved to.

The killers sometimes combine to attack larger whales, and in Bullen’s interesting book he repeats an account of a combat which he witnessed between a bull cachalot and such a combination of enemies. Two hungry killers and a 16 ft. swordfish joined forces to attack the big whale. The swordfish launched himself at the monster, but the latter turned in time to receive the shock on the head, and the blow glanced off it, the fish rolling helplessly over the top of the whale. With a sudden rapid movement the latter turned, grasped the aggressor with his immense jaws and crunched him into two portions, which he promptly swallowed. Then, with a terrific lash of his tail, he came down on one of the killers, and “crushed it like a shrimp under one’s heel.” Here is Bullen’s conclusion: “The survivor fled—never faster—for an avalanche of living furious flesh was behind him, and coming with enormous leaps half out of the sea every time. Thus they disappeared, but I have no doubt as to the issue. Of one thing I am certain: that if any of the trio survived they never afterwards attempted to rush a cachalot.” Bullen is rather mixed in this narrative. According to a Dr. Frangius, “When an Orca pursues a whale the latter makes a terrible bellowing, like a bull when bitten by a dog.” He may be referring to a Right Whale, for certainly his remark does not apply to the Sperm Whale, which is a dangerous foe to all its enemies.

The Cowfish (Tursiops tursio) is a beaked whale, some 12 ft. long, which has been taken in New Zealand waters. The colour of the back varies from black to lead-colour, while the under-parts are white. It is a species of world-wide range.

So is the last of the whales which I shall mention, the Blackfish (Globicephalus melas), known in the Hebrides and the west of Scotland as the “ca’ing whale.” This is one of the largest of the dolphins, reaching some 20 ft. in length. It is a gregarious species, moving about in great schools or shoals. Its sheep-like habits enable it to be easily driven on shore in herds, when the animals are easily harpooned. Schools of Blackfish not unfrequently visit the inlets and shores of the North of Auckland. Bullen gives an account of an attack on an immense school of Blackfish which the “Cachalot” encountered when near Christmas Island in the mid-Pacific.

Any one interested in the natural history of the sea will find the study of its cetaceans is still in a very incomplete state. Few people know anything about them scientifically, because their occurrence and the opportunity of studying them at first hand are so erratic and rare. When a whale comes ashore it is usually in some inaccessible place, and if the fact is communicated to a museum the finder usually places a considerable price on his discovery, which makes the investigation too expensive to be undertaken. When our fisheries are properly organized it will be possible to study the cetacean fauna much more closely and accurately than is at present the case.

CHAPTER VIII.

The skull is very strongly developed, and has great bony ridges for the attachment of the jaw-muscles. In herbivorous animals the brain-case is small and the face much prolonged; but in carnivores—especially cats—the face is very short relatively to the cranial portion of the skull. The higher carnivora cannot chew or grind their food; they only tear it and mince it. Cats and dogs walk on the toes, the under-surfaces of which are covered with soft leathery pads, so as to ensure a soft, silent footstep. What looks like the knee is really the wrist, and what looks like a backward-turned knee in the hind leg is the heel, the true elbow and knee being almost hidden by the skin. In all carnivores the canine teeth are relatively very large. All of them have the senses of sight and hearing very well developed. The young are always born in a comparatively helpless condition, and are generally blind for some time after their birth.

The Cat.

There is no record as to the first introduction of cats into New Zealand; but no doubt they were brought here by the very first settlers—perhaps earlier even, by the crews of vessels which called at Kororareka and other parts of this county in the very early whaling days. They do not seem to have strayed far from the haunts of men until rabbits began to multiply. Then, when the sheep-farmers found that the capacity of the country for carrying sheep was being seriously reduced by the vast increase of rabbits, they resorted to all sorts of devices to cope with the pest. One method was to purchase cats in the towns, take them out to the back country, feed them for a time till they became somewhat habituated to the locality, and then turn them loose. No doubt some died, but most of them became more or less wild, and learned to subsist on the smaller animals of the neighbourhood. Probably native ground-birds suffered most from their presence. They certainly destroyed many young rabbits, but it is also true that they were frequently found living and rearing their young in burrows alongside families of rabbits. They cleared off the rats, which were formerly so common, and they also largely exterminated lizards. My son, Dr. Allan Thomson, tells me that in the Awatere Valley, in Marlborough, rabbit-hunting cats are greatly esteemed by the settlers, and are believed to be much more efficient than stoats and weasels. They are only partly wild, as frequently the domestic cats feed their young on rabbits and interbreed freely with wild cats living near the homesteads. He observed a cat at Awapiri teaching two kittens to kill. She would leave the house, and in about ten minutes’ time would return with a baby rabbit, evidently obtained from a stop. When the kittens were very young she killed the rabbit and skinned it. A week or two later she would give them the dead rabbit with the skin just partially turned back, and they quickly learned to complete the skinning. Still later she gave them the live rabbit, with which at first they played, but in a very short time they learned to approach the rabbit from behind and grip it by the neck, lying practically on top of it and pinching the gullet until the rabbit was strangled. Cats, in his opinion, become rabbit-killers only when they are thus taught by their mothers, but once they acquire the habit they feed on little else.

Dieffenbach, writing of the Piako district in Auckland Province in 1839, says, “The cats, which, on becoming wild, have assumed the streaky grey colour of the original animal while in a state of nature, form a great obstacle to the propagation of any new kinds of birds, and also tend to the destruction of many indigenous species.” This statement about the colour of wild cats has been made much of. It is true to only a very limited extent, and I have always felt that such statements—coming from a traveller who had only limited means of observing the facts, and apparently founded his conclusions on a few isolated observations of the settlers—are not always safe to generalize from. In the present instance they led Darwin (in “The Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication”) to quote him, and to use the statement as a proof of the strong tendency to reversion shown by the cat when it escaped from domestication. At the time Dieffenbach wrote settlement was quite in its infancy, and cats had not long been introduced. It is probable, therefore, that his statement, whether the result of his own or other people’s observations, referred to cats which were themselves progeny of grey animals. It certainly is the case that in Central Otago, where cats were freely liberated to cope with the rabbit pest, animals of many and varied colours are now found wild. Mr. Robert Scott, formerly M.P. for Central Otago, who had exceptional opportunities for observing the facts, has recently given me most interesting information regarding this question. He says, “The wild cat was, no doubt, the descendant of the shepherd’s and miner’s tame cat. The predominating colour was grey-striped (or tiger-striped, as some people called them), occasionally yellow, and rarely black or black-and-white. The time I write of was the ‘seventies’—say, from 1870 on to the time when poisoning the rabbits with phosphorized grain came in. The cats, though not numerous, were fairly common, especially in districts where cover, such as fern and scrub, was plentiful. They grew to an immense size, and were game to the last if attacked; in fact, no dog would tackle one single-handed. They were always in the pink of condition, which may be accounted for by the abundance of feed available in the shape of wekas, ducks, and rats, with perhaps a dead sheep or bullock occasionally. When the rabbit-poisoning came in that class or variety of cat disappeared along with the wild pig and weka. The reason for the extermination of the cat is because it prefers the entrails to the flesh. Since that time, up to the present, cats have been turned out in considerable numbers, but the rabbit-trapping has effectually prevented their increase, and the survivors still retain their original colours—that is, black, black-and-white, grey, grey-and-white, &c.; but they are much smaller than the wild cat of forty years ago. My opinion is that had the original cat survived till to-day the colour would have invariably been grey, or, rather, grey-striped.”

Mr. H. C. Weir, of Ida Valley Station, Otago, states that on high country, where rabbit-traps are seldom if ever used, they grow to a very considerable size, and are most commonly of a grey colour; but yellow, grey-and-white, and black are also to be met with. He adds, “I cannot say I ever saw any approaching the tiger-like stripe of the Home-country wild cat, and I have seen a good few of them in the wilds of Sutherlandshire, Scotland.”

Some people consider that wild cats are responsible for much of the failure which has followed the constantly renewed attempts to naturalize game birds. At the annual meeting of the Wellington Acclimatization Society in 1898 a member said, “Cats are more destructive to game than all the hawks, weasels, and stoats in the colony. Most of the bush coverts are full of these cats, a fact which I myself proved near Feilding, where, with the assistance of traps baited with smoked fish, I caught many.” I think they may have contributed to some extent to this failure, but only in a few parts of the country, and then chiefly in the neighbourhood of settlements. Personally, I do not think that wild cats have had much to do with the extermination of introduced game. The whole question is a difficult one to get any definite knowledge upon, opinions differ so much. Thus Mr. Charles J. Peters, of Mount Somers, considers that wild cats are far more effective in keeping down rabbits than are stoats or weasels, and estimates that cats will kill more rabbits in a month than one of the others will in six months.

Mr. B. C. Aston, in a paper on the Kaikoura Mountains, speaks of the half-wild cats which are found about deserted fencers’ and musterers’ camps as retaining “all their love for man’s comradeship if encouraged, but they invariably refuse to eat anything that they have not killed themselves. They probably exist on rabbits, birds, and mice. As a result of their hunting habits their chest and forelegs are largely developed, and they have a look different from the ordinary cat, being leaner, and quicker in action.”

Wild cats, so my son Dr. Allan Thomson tells me, are the bane of the island sanctuaries of New Zealand, being present on Kapiti Island, Little Barrier Island, and Stephen Island, in which last they kill and eat the tuatara. They have been reduced to small numbers by shooting, but their complete extermination has not yet been accomplished.

When the Russian Commander Bellingshausen visited the Macquaries in 1820 he found numbers of wild cats hid among the foliage. There were at the time, however, two parties of traders (seal-hunters?) on the island, one of thirteen and the other of twenty-seven men, and these probably accounted for the cats.

Captain Musgrave, who was a castaway from the schooner “Grafton,” when she was wrecked on the Auckland Islands in 1864, found a cat in a trap more than a year after the date of the wreck. “She soon cleared the hut of mice, which were dreadfully common.”

In 1868 Mr. H. H. Travers, in his account of a visit to the Chatham Islands, states that wild cats were very abundant, and that they destroyed a great number of the indigenous birds.

Wild Dogs.

It may seem strange to speak of dogs as wild animals in New Zealand, and it is questionable whether there are any wild dogs at the present time, but in the early days of settlement they were fairly abundant, and were truly feral. Dogs are the most thoroughly domesticated of animals, and in none has the moral and intellectual faculties been more highly developed. But just as some men degrade these faculties to the basest uses and become a menace to the rest of their race, so some dogs—only a few, it must be admitted—go wild and become a menace to their human companions and masters.

It is of interest to remember that when Captain Cook came to New Zealand the Natives had dogs, which they had brought with them from their original homes in Polynesia. Most of the histories of the migrations of the Maori refer to the fact of their bringing dogs with them, so that they had probably been in the country for some centuries before the date of Cook’s visit in 1769. Crozet, who visited these Islands in 1772, saw these dogs, and described them as follows: “The dogs are a sort of domesticated fox, quite black or white, very low on the legs, straight ears, thick tail, long body, full jaws, but more pointed than that of the fox, and uttering the same cry. They do not bark like our dogs. These animals are only fed on fish, and it appears that the savages only raise them for food. Some were taken on board our vessels, but it was impossible to domesticate them like our dogs: they were always treacherous, and bit us frequently. They would have been dangerous to keep where poultry was raised or had to be protected: they would destroy them just like true foxes.”

Forster, in his account of Cook’s second voyage, writing of the Queen Charlotte Sound Natives in 1773, says, “A good many dogs were observed in their canoes, which they seemed very fond of, and kept tied with a string round their middle. They were of a rough, long-haired sort, with pricked ears, and much resembled the common shepherd’s cur or Count Buffon’s chien de berger. They were of different colours, some quite black and others perfectly white. The food which these dogs receive is fish, or the same as their masters live on, who afterwards eat their flesh and employ the fur in various ornaments and dresses.” Later on in the same journal he says, “The officers had ordered their black dog to be killed, and sent to the captain one-half of it. This day (June 9), therefore, we dined for the first time on a leg of it roasted, which tasted so exactly like mutton that it was absolutely undistinguishable.... In New Zealand and in the tropical isles of the South Sea the dogs are the most stupid, dull animals imaginable, and do not seem to have the least advantage in point of sagacity over our sheep. In the former country they are fed upon fish; in the latter, on vegetables.”

Bellingshausen, who visited New Zealand in 1820, says, “We saw no quadrupeds except dogs of a small species. Captain Lazarew bought a couple. They are rather small, have a woolly tail, erect ears, a large mouth, and short legs.”

Dieffenbach, writing nearly seventy years after Cook’s visit, remarks that “the native dog was formerly considered a dainty, and great numbers of them were eaten; but the breed having undergone an almost complete mixture with the European, their use as an article of food has been discontinued, as the European dogs are said by the Natives to be perfectly unpalatable. The New Zealand dog is different from the Australian dingo; the latter resembles in size and shape the wolf, while the former rather resembles the jackal.”

The Rev. Richard Taylor, author of “Te Ika a Maui,” who is not always a reliable authority where natural history is concerned, says, “The New Zealand dog was small and long-haired, of a dirty white or yellow colour, with a bushy tail. This the Natives say they brought with them when they first came to these Islands.” Then he adds, “It is not improbable, however, that they found another kind already in the country, brought by the older Melanesian race, with long white hair and black tail: it is said to have been very quiet and docile.”

The Maori dog has totally disappeared. Mr. S. Percy Smith, of New Plymouth, tells me that the last one he heard of was about 1896. But I have mentioned it here because it was in part the progenitor of the wild dogs which afterwards became such a dangerous nuisance to sheep-breeders.

When settlement began European dogs must have crossed freely with the native animal, and many, both of the introduced and crossed dogs, became truly wild, especially as there were sheep and goats to worry, and pigs to chase and kill.

Dr. Lyall, who was surgeon on H.M.S. “Acheron” during the survey of the coast of New Zealand in 1844, says of the kakapo, or owl-parrot, that “at a very recent period it was common all over the west coast of the Middle Island; but there is now a race of wild dogs said to have overrun all the northern part of this shore, and to have almost exterminated the kakapo wherever they have reached.” Brunner, who visited the West Coast a few years later, makes a similar statement in his Journal. The early settlers could not distinguish between Maori dogs and these wild, half-bred curs. Thus R. Gillies, writing in after-years of the early days of the Otago settlement, which was formed in 1848, says, “For some years after the settlers arrived here the wild dog was the terror of the flockmaster, and the object of his inveterate hostility.” W. D. Murison, formerly editor of the Otago Daily Times, writing at the same period (1877), tells how in 1858 he and his brother took up country in the Maniototo Plains, which they reached by the valley of the Shag River. The wild dogs were very troublesome. The first was caught by a kangaroo-dog, apparently imported from Australia for the purpose of hunting them. “This particular wild dog was yellow in colour, and so was the second killed; but the bulk of those ultimately destroyed by us were black-and-white, showing a marked mixture of the collie. The yellow dogs looked like a distinct breed. They were low-set, with short pricked ears, broad forehead, sharp snout, and bushy tail. Indeed, those acquainted with the dingo professed to see little difference between that animal and the New Zealand yellow wild dog. It may be remarked, however, that most of the other dogs we killed, although variously coloured, possessed nearly all the other characteristics of the yellow dog. The wild dogs were generally to be met with in twos and threes; they fed chiefly on quail, ground-larks, young ducks, and occasionally on pigs. On one occasion, when riding through the Idaburn Valley, we came across four wild dogs baiting a sow and her litter of young ones in a dry, tussocky lagoon. To our annoyance our own dogs joined in the attack upon the sow, and the wild dogs got away without our getting one of them.... In all we destroyed fifty-two dogs between September, 1858, and December, 1860.”

Taylor White, writing in 1889, says, “I consider these dogs entirely distinct from the European dog. For the wild dogs met with on the Waimakariri River, in the alpine ranges of Canterbury, during the year 1856, were in colour and markings identical with those found in the alpine region of Lake Wakatipu in 1860, a distance of several hundred miles apart. There seems little room to doubt that they were an original Maori dog. The fact of their wanting the two tan spots over the eyes mostly seen in European dogs of approximate colour is a very strong evidence also in favour of this opinion.”

At one time wild dogs were so common in Marlborough and did so much damage on the sheep-runs that packs of hunting-dogs were bred for the special purpose of running them down. As settlement proceeded and the country became opened up wild dogs were gradually exterminated. The only ones which are now met with are curs which have taken to rabbits or to sheep-killing, and have managed to escape from their owners.

Bellingshausen reported wild dogs on the Macquaries in 1820, but it is improbable that they long survived the sealers, who probably generally brought them to the islands. As soon as the killing of seals and sea-lions stopped the dogs in all probability died out. Captain Musgrave, who was wrecked on Auckland Island in 1864, discovered wild dogs, like sheep-dogs, on the island. Their case, however, was probably similar to those on the Macquaries, for I am not aware that any subsequent visitor to the island has seen them.

In a reprint from the Auckland Herald of the 18th November, 1866, we read, “It is not generally known that about Otamatea and the Wairoa the bush is infested with packs of wild dogs, as ferocious, but more daring, than wolves. These dogs hunt in packs of from three to six or eight. They are strong, gaunt, large animals, and dangerous when met by a man alone. Not long since a Maori, when travelling from one settlement to another through the forest, was attacked by three of these animals at dusk, and only saved himself by climbing into a tree, where he was kept prisoner until late the next day. The extensive district over which these packs roam was once well stocked with wild pigs, but most of these have fallen victims to the dogs, and since this supply of food has failed the dogs have ventured after dark to the neighbourhood of Native settlements and the homesteads of European settlers in quest of prey.”

CHAPTER IX.

The ferret is closely allied to the polecat, but is a domesticated variety, and is zoologically interesting, because it is a true-breeding albino, having white fur and pink eyes. It originated in Africa, and retains this characteristic of its warm origin: that it is unable to endure great cold; hence if it goes wild in New Zealand it usually survives only in warm and sheltered localities. It is from 12 in. to 15 in. long, and is a stouter animal than either of the others. Though a semi-domesticated animal, it never shows the slightest affection for its master, and has usually to be kept in confinement. My son, Dr. Allan Thomson, tells me that about Kekerangu, in Marlborough, wild ferrets are at present very numerous.

I have no record of the introduction of the true polecat (Putorius foetidus) into these Islands; but some five or six years ago Mr. Anderton, curator of the Portobello Marine Fish-hatchery, shot two animals which were too large for stoats, being about 18 in. long. They were not ferrets, in that they were brown-coloured. Unfortunately he did not keep the bodies, their smell, for one thing, being so offensive; so their specific character was not determined.

The stoat is about 1 ft. long and is somewhat distinctively coloured. “In summer the upper parts vary from yellowish-brown to mahogany-brown, while the underside is white tinged with sulphur-yellow, except on the throat, which is pure white. The tail is tipped with black. The brown upper and white under surfaces are separated by a perfectly distinct line of demarcation, which extends from the snout to the root of the tail, dipping down at the limbs, so as to include the outer surfaces of the latter in the dark area. In winter, on the other hand, the skin is—with the exception of the tip of the tail, which always remains black—pure white, tinged here and there with sulphur-yellow. Intermediate states between full winter dress and full summer dress are often found.” In winter, when the fur is white, the animal is known as the ermine, and white stoats are well known in winter in the South Island. The favourite food of the stoat consists of rats and mice, but it is fond of birds, and thus is a danger in a poultry-yard. It occasionally attacks lambs. These creatures seem often to kill for the mere sake of killing. In my boyhood days I at one time kept a large number of rabbits in an enclosure. One night a stoat got in and killed the whole lot—over a dozen—and left each with a hole in the back of its head. These animals are fairly abundant over New Zealand at the present time.

One is frequently asked what is the difference between a stoat and a weasel. According to one authority, the one “is stoatally different from the other, and weasely distinguished.” But this does not help us much. The weasel “in length, from snout to root of tail, does not exceed 8 in. The tail is about 2 in. long. The fur is light reddish-brown above, and white below.” The size and black-tipped tail best distinguish the stoat. The weasel is a good climber, and makes use of its skill in this accomplishment to prey upon birds, their eggs and young. Rats and mice are its favourite food.

The history of the introduction of these vermin into this country is characteristic of the acclimatization methods of the past. Ferrets have been introduced from early times by dealers in birds and animals. The first authentic record is that of the Canterbury Acclimatization Society, which received five in 1867. They were apparently not liberated, nor were subsequent introductions for some time. When rabbits began to increase to an alarming extent various suggestions were made as to the importation of what was called “the natural enemy.” The fox is the real natural enemy of the rabbit, but this was too risky a proposal to be made. The Victorian Government had already allowed some idiots to introduce foxes into that country in order to allow them the pleasures of fox-hunting, and the result has not been encouraging. One well-known public man in New Zealand proposed to introduce Arctic foxes “because their fur would be so valuable.” When it was pointed out to him that they would probably prefer lamb to rabbit, he replied that, as they did not know anything about lambs in their native haunts, it was improbable that they would take to eating them in New Zealand. Fortunately his proposal was not given effect to. Meanwhile sheepowners brought pressure to bear on the Government, and as a result steps were taken to obtain ferrets. Numbers of these were introduced in 1882, and in the following year Mr. Bailey, Chief Rabbit Inspector, recommended the introduction of stoats and weasels. To show the scale on which these recommendations were carried out, I summarize from Mr. Bailey’s reports as follows:—

(a.) In July, 1883, it is stated that since March, 1882 (fifteen months), the Agent-General had made thirty-two shipments of ferrets from London, numbering altogether 1,217 animals. Of these, only 178 were landed, at a cost of £953. Of 241 purchased in Melbourne, 198 were landed, at a cost of £224. Thus the total number landed was 376, and the cost £1,177, or £3 2s. 7d. per head. The natural increase was 122, but 157 died of distemper. At this period it would seem as if the Government kept a perfect menagerie of these animals. In the same year a substantial bonus was offered to any one who would introduce a certain number of stoats or weasels in a healthy condition.

(b.) In 1884 he reports “nearly 4,000 ferrets were turned out; 3,041 in Marlborough alone, and about 400 on Crown land in Otago.” The rest appear to have been sold to private individuals. It is evident that there was no study of the suitability of a semi-domesticated subtropical animal becoming acclimatized in this country, and, as a matter of fact, the ferret has not gone wild in the South Island to any great extent. Mr. Bailey also stated in this report that “an agent has been sent Home to procure stoats and weasels.” Mr. Rich, of Palmerston, imported some of these latter in a sailing-vessel, but how many I cannot learn.

(c.) In 1885 two lots of stoats and weasels were received from London—viz., 183 weasels (out of 202 shipped) and 55 stoats (out of 60). Of these, 67 weasels were released at Lake Wanaka on a peninsula of 8,000 acres, on which they reduced the rabbits, but by no means exterminated them; 28 weasels were liberated at Lake Wakatipu; 15 weasels near the Waiau River, in Southland; and 8 stoats at Ashburton. The rest were sold at Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin.

(d.) In 1886 the Government introduced two lots. Of these, 82 stoats and 126 weasels were distributed in about equal lots to the Wilkin River, the Makarora, at the head of Lake Ohau, and on the Waitaki; and 32 stoats and 116 weasels were distributed between Marlborough and West Wairarapa. A private shipment of 55 stoats and 167 weasels was also received for Riddiford’s station in West Wairarapa. The localities selected for these animals were those in which rabbits were most abundant. Mr. Bailey also reported that “ferrets were turned out by thousands,” but the success was only partial.

In the same year a meeting was held at Masterton to consider the administration of the Rabbit Act, and the best means of dealing with the pest. One of the resolutions carried was, “That the introduction of ferrets, stoats, and weasels in large numbers is in the opinion of this meeting the only means by which the rabbit pest can be successfully put an end to, and that every owner of land infested with rabbits should either turn out ferrets in proportion to his acreage or contribute to a fund for the breeding and purchase of ferrets, stoats, and weasels to be turned out in the district. That the landowners present form themselves into an association for the purpose of providing the natural enemies.” An association was accordingly formed with this object in view, large sums of money were subscribed, and hundreds of stoats and weasels were introduced into the district. Several of the acclimatization societies took strong exception to the action of the Government and of the sheepowners directly concerned; but as the societies were themselves directly responsible for the rabbits to a large extent their protests were ineffectual.

These animals have not exterminated the rabbits; they do not even keep them in check in most parts. They have, however, helped in the practical extermination over wide areas of many species of indigenous birds, for they have penetrated into quite unsettled and unbroken parts of the country, where apparently they feed on the avifauna.

Every one who has had any experience of these vermin has his own view as to their usefulness or otherwise, but it is seldom that careful observers put their experiences down on paper. I have collected some evidence on this subject, and give here a few of the observations which have been recorded.

Mr. George Mueller, Chief Surveyor of Westland, in his report on the “Reconnaissance Survey of the Headwaters of the Okuru, Actor, and Burke Rivers” (Reports N.Z. Survey Department for 1889–90, p. 50), says, “Several weasels and ferrets were caught and killed at the Okuru and Waiatoto Settlements, within about a mile from the sea-coast.... No rabbits were met with until near the Actor, nineteen miles from the coast, and they were only seen in numbers at the very headwaters of the Okuru.... Meanwhile the kakapos, kiwis, and blue ducks have nearly disappeared from the district.”

Mr. Richard Henry, writing from Lake Te Anau in September, 1890, says, “I have known the ferrets to take young paradise ducks out of a clutch often in 1888, and last year the same pair of ducks reared only two young ones; but away from the lake I have seen larger families. I found two black teal ducks killed by a ferret, though it is seldom any of their work is seen, for they always drag their prey under cover. The black teal are getting scarce.” Mr. Henry adds, “I think very few ferrets at liberty survive the winter for want of food.” My own opinion is that they cannot endure the cold.

Mr. Richard Norman, Albert Town, writing in the Otago Witness of the 2nd October, 1890, says, “I think that Mr. E. H. Wilmot’s experience in the Hollyford Valley, as recorded in the Witness a year or two ago, conclusively proves that the imported vermin kill the native wingless birds. He encountered there a ferret-warren, and the weka, kiwi, and kakapo were almost exterminated. In the Makarora Valley these used to be plentiful, but since the advent of the stoats and weasels they are very rare, and rabbiting tallies have not depreciated.”

Mr. Charles J. Peters, of Mount Somers, writes about these animals (1916): “Since the stoats and weasels became fairly numerous the rabbits have increased 100 per cent. and more. I have found weasels’ nests both in heaps of fencing-material and also in rabbit-burrows. These nests have always been made of skylarks’ feathers. I have also found parts of young hares at weasels’ camps, but never a sign of a rabbit.”

Mr. Yarborough, of Kohukohu (Hokianga), states that stoats and weasels do not seem to be so numerous now (1916) as they were some few years ago. At that time a great number of these intrepid little animals appeared on the eastern side of Hokianga Estuary, and were occasionally observed swimming across the river, which is about a mile wide. For the last year or more they have neither been seen nor heard of. The same observation has been made of the occurrence of these animals on the peninsula on which the Portobello Marine Fish-hatchery stands. Three or four years ago they were very abundant, but recently there are few to be seen.

In Taranaki a correspondent informed me last year that either stoats or weasels destroyed a litter of nine sucking-pigs in one night. Another informant states that “at Lee Stream, in the Taieri district, I saw a rabbit paralysed with fright and uttering squeals of terror, and on looking for the cause observed a stoat fully 10 ft. away walking deliberately towards its victim. The rabbit was killed by one bite on the neck. A few weeks ago a lady informed me that she had seen a somewhat similar occurrence at Brighton, but in this case the rabbit struggled to the lady for protection, and fell trembling at her feet, while the stoat disappeared.”

A few years ago stoats were fairly common in the suburbs of Wellington, and made great depredations amongst poultry, entering the fowlhouses at night. My son describes seeing a couple playing in a vacant section at Hataitai, and taking not the slightest notice of passers-by.

CHAPTER X.

Before referring at length to the fur-seal I may with advantage quote what Sir James Hector had to say about other species in a report he prepared for the Minister of Marine in 1892. He states that the hair-seal, or sea-lion (Eumetopias hookeri), used to take up its station on the west coast of the South Island about December. The animals are polygamous, and the males are enormously larger than the females. The males arrive first. “Soon afterwards the cow seals appear, and on landing give birth to the young, each male securing a harem of ten to twenty cows, and protecting the mothers and young pups. The rutting season is in January, after which the males (or lions) leave the mothers to bring up the young until May, when they all leave the coast for the winter. The mode of life of the hair-seals has, however, been much altered since 1863, when I made my first observations, and I believe that the New Zealand hair-seals have now become much more solitary, and that they will soon become extinct.”

When I was in the extreme south of Stewart Island in 1874 I found the tracks of these animals in the scrub close to the water’s edge, though I did not meet with the sea-lions themselves. I have not heard of one being seen for many a long day.

Speaking of the sea-leopard, Hector wrote as follows: “This is common round the New Zealand coast, but is a solitary animal. They frequently come on shore, and, notwithstanding their feeble powers of locomotion, they scramble far back into the bush in flat country, and occasionally ascend rivers for a long distance. For instance, one of the seals ascended the Waikato River a few years ago as far as Hamilton, and was claimed by the Maoris as being a real taniwha.”

The fur-seal (Arctocephalus forsteri) is named after J. R. Forster, the naturalist who accompanied Captain Cook on his second voyage of circumnavigation. When in Dusky Bay the seals were found in great numbers on the rocks in the sound, Forster described them as seals with ears (the northern seals being earless), free hands, feet webbed on the under-surface, naked between the fingers, and hardly nailed. “Gregarious in habit, they are timid, and fling themselves off the rocks into the sea on the approach of man; but the most powerful resist when attacked, bite the weapons used against them, and even venture to assail the boats. They swim with such rapidity that a boat rowed by six strong men can scarcely keep up with them. Tenacious of life to a degree, a fractured skull did not despatch them.” These animals are from 6 ft. to 7 ft. in length; the anterior flipper is about 30 in. long; and the posterior about 15 in. Full-grown males weigh 260 lb. and over, and females from 200 lb. to 220 lb. The hair is soft and black, with reddish-grey tips, and the under-fur is a delicate reddish colour. In old specimens the hairs are tipped with white.

Hector, writing in 1892, says, “I spent from June, 1863, to January, 1864, in the western sounds of Otago, and have since made occasional visits at other seasons, but chiefly during the summer months, from February to May. I have always observed the seals closely, and have collected many specimens. The male fur-seal used to arrive about the 5th November on inaccessible rocky platforms outside the entrance to the fiords or sounds, and the cows began to arrive about the 1st December. At the same date all the young stock—males up to seven and females up to three or four years old—went to still more exposed places by themselves, and spent the moulting season until about the end of March, when, having acquired the new fur coat, they proceeded to sea. The last of these ‘hauling-grounds,’ as they are called, I have known in New Zealand was at Cape Foulwind, but formerly they were all round the coast. In the breeding-grounds, or ‘rookeries,’ the old males keep guard on the females and newly-born pups until the close of the rutting season, about the 15th February, and then desert them, being then in a feeble and emaciated condition from having fasted, and fed only on their own fat, for several months. The females remain with the pups until they learn to swim and to catch fish for themselves, and about the end of May they all leave the coast, only occasionally a groggy old bull remaining behind for the winter months.”

Soon after the discovery of New Zealand by Cook the abundance of the fur-seals on the coast led to the exploitation of this source of wealth by sealers—many from Sydney, but others from far-distant ports of Europe and America. Sealing from Sydney appears to have commenced as early as 1791, but it was not till 1801 that the trade was “free to British subjects, as to foreigners, although as a concession granted by a private company” (the East India Company), according to Dr. McNab. Sir Joseph Banks, in a memorandum on the “Present State of the Colony of Sidney, in New South Wales,” dated the 4th June, 1806, says of the fur-seal, “The island of Van Diemen, the south-west coast of New Holland, and the southern parts of New Zealand produce seals of all kinds in quantities at present almost innumerable. Their stations on rocks or in bays have remained unmolested since the Creation. The beach is incumber’d with their quantities, and those who visit their haunts have less trouble in killing them than the servants of the Victualling Office have who kill hogs in a pen with mallets. While this is the case the utmost encouragement should be given to those colonists who will embark in search of the seals.... There can be no doubt that at all times hereafter seals will be attainable in great quantities—as is now the case in Newfoundland—by stationary fishers, who know the courses they take in their migrations, and can intercept them in their progress by nets and other contrivances. Thus, if we encourage our new settlers to disturb as speedily as possible every seal-station they can discover, we shall receive from them an immense supply of skins and oil in the first instance; shall prevent the interference of foreign nations in future in the sealing fishery; and secure to ourselves a permanent fishery hereafter, because it will be carried out by means which none but stationary fishermen can provide.”

To show how far out Banks was in his estimate of the permanency of the seal fishery, I may quote a sentence from a despatch sent by Surgeon Luttrell to Under-Secretary Sullivan, dated the 8th October, 1807: “A few of the ships that have arrived have had a Home freight of whale-oil and seal-skins, but the latter trade is greatly on the decline, as the seals are all nearly destroyed on the southern islands in this coast, or, from the constant molestation they have suffered, have abandoned the islands.” In the course of a parliamentary inquiry held in England in 1819 a Mr. McDonald, who had been sealing on the New Zealand coast, gave some evidence on this subject, from which I summarize the following: The seals were taken at two different seasons, the best being in April, when the pups are six months old, and the other about Christmas, when the females come to the males. The pup seals yield about 2 gallons of oil, and the “wigs,” or old males, from 5 to 6 gallons. The skins brought from 5s. to 8s. each. On the first voyage he was out they brought over some 11,500 skins. Asked if the skins were becoming scarce on the coast of New Zealand, he stated that they were not, but they required to be well sought after.

From 1803 to 1805 several small vessels visited the south and south-west coasts of New Zealand and carried off many thousands of seal-skins; but even by that date the seals must have been reduced in numbers, and the sealers had turned their attention to the Southern Islands. Thus in 1806 the American ship “Favourite” reached Sydney with 60,000 seal-skins, said to have been obtained on the “east coast of New Zealand.” As a matter of fact, they were taken on Antipodes Island.

A Mr. Scott, on the authority of Mr. Morris, an old Sydney sealer by profession, remarks that “to so great an extent was this indiscriminate killing carried that in two years (1814–15) no less than 400,000 skins were obtained from Penantipod, or Antipodes Island, alone, and necessarily collected in so hasty a manner that very many of them but were imperfectly cured. The ship ‘Pegasus’ took home 100,000 of these in bulk, and on her arrival in London the skins, having heated during the voyage, had to be dug out of the hold, and were sold as manure—a sad and reckless waste of life.”

Later on the Bounties were visited; then the Auckland Islands were discovered and exploited; and still later the Campbell and Macquarie Islands. It is quite impossible to arrive at any estimate of the quantity of oil and seal-skins taken in this destructive trade; and, further, many of the most successful sealers did not state too definitely where they obtained their catches.

A letter written in Sydney about 1824 states that, “I do assert of late the southern and western coasts of New Zealand have been infested with Europeans and New-Zealanders who without consideration have killed the pups before they are prime, and the clapmatches before pupping, for the sake of eating their carcases, the consequence of which is that the increase of [sic] seals will be totally extinct in about three years on the coast. This circumstance will illustrate what I am about to observe when I state that the seals will not resort to the ground frequented by man.” According to the late Dr. McNab, the great seal trade of New Zealand was practically over by 1830. Captain Benjamin Morrell, of the American schooner “Antarctic,” visited the Southern Islands in that year, and here are his own words: “Although the Auckland Islands once abounded with numerous herds of fur and hair seals, the American and English seamen engaged in this business have made such clean work of it as scarcely to leave a breed; at all events, there was not one fur-seal to be found on the 4th January, 1830. We therefore got under way on the morning of Tuesday, the 5th, at 6 o’clock, and steered for another cluster of islands—or, rather, rocks—called ‘the Snares.’... We searched them in vain for fur-seal, with which they formerly abounded. The population was extinct—cut off, root and branch.”

CHAPTER XI.

The feet of bats are peculiar. The toes are all about the same length, and the first (or great) toe is nearly in a line with the others; all are furnished with sharp claws. They are not fitted to walk on the ground, but to grasp the branches of trees, and Hutton says this species “has adaptations which led to the conclusion that it hunts for its insect prey not only in the air, but also on the branches and leaves of trees, among which its peculiarities of structure must enable it to creep and crawl with ease and security.” The length of this little bat is about 2·8 in., and the spread of its wings about 12 in. Knox says of it, “A well-defined line ran from the wrist-joint, sweeping round to the elbow, knee, and setting on of the tail, dividing the wing-shaped pectoral extremity, so that on the internal segment hair was developed, whilst on the external segment the integumentary expansion was perfectly smooth, so that when the forearm and hand was completely drawn in or retracted, the tail being free, the animal resembled in every respect, even in that of colour and short silky hair, a little mouse; and the small, short thumb, with its peculiar nail, would rest on the ground.”

The long-tailed, short-eared bat (Chalinolobus morio) is found all over New Zealand. Hutton says of it, “Up to 1885 it was common about Christchurch, but it is thought that the destruction of the old wooden bridge over the Avon, where numbers used to gather together, has driven it away. It measures about 2 in. in total length, being slightly smaller than the other species, and is about the same size as the ‘flitter-mouse,’ the commonest species in England.” Knox gives rather larger dimensions for this bat. One he measured was 3½ in. long and had a spread of wing of 10·8 in. Buller, writing of these animals in 1892, says that both species, according to the Maoris, live in communities, inhabiting the cavernous interior of some dead and hollow tree, congregating there in hundreds and thousands, and clinging to the sides in successive tiers, packed so closely as to occupy the entire surface.

Mr. Caldwell, a District Surveyor, gave Buller the following information about this bat: “I left Carterton, together with two companions,” he said, “for a walk into the hills at the right-hand side of the Waiohine, going by way of the Belvedere Road. We got fairly up the hills by about 10 a.m., and climbed a high range covered with black-birch. Getting warm we sat down on the moss to rest. Then my attention was attracted by a smell of a kind I had not noticed in the bush before, and one that reminded me of a flying-fox camp in Queensland. I followed the smell for some distance to a large birch-tree, with an opening about 4 ft. from the ground. I had evidently traced the smell to its source, for at the opening it was fairly stifling. I could see nothing, so I lighted a bunch of dry leaves, and thrust it through the opening into the tree. As I did this a bat flew out in my face, then another and another. The smoke increased, and the bats streamed out in hundreds. I had no means of computing the number; but one of my men, having a small switch in his hand, kept striking at the stream, the result of which I afterwards counted. There were exactly a hundred bats killed. For one killed at least ten must have passed and flown away. Large numbers dropped down in clusters through the blazing opening. I had no idea there were so many bats in the Wairarapa, and would not have believed it had I not seen them. I have never seen in New Zealand another such collection.” My first comment on reading this account was disgust and indignation at the wanton slaughter of these rare and inoffensive animals. Buller adds that “most unfortunately the fire took possession of the tree, which was in a very dry and combustible state, and the whole colony perished in the conflagration.” It is no wonder these animals have become rare!

Cheeseman records numerous other instances of the great congregations of these bats in bush-covered districts. Many hundreds were found in a hollow tree in the Wangapeka Valley, Nelson, in 1881. Later on a colony of several hundreds was found in the Thames; and in 1893 a bushfeller in the Kaipara district found hundreds of them in a tree which he cut down. He brought twenty-two of them alive in a box to Mr. Cheeseman, who, being anxious to see how they would behave in a room with closed doors and windows, liberated them. “The experiment justified to some extent the belief that bats enjoy an acute sense of touch, probably unequalled throughout the animal kingdom. They took to their wings at once, and commenced to circle round the room with that quick, soft, and noiseless flight which they are enabled to pursue by means of their velvety wings. The presence of full daylight did not affect them in the slightest degree, and they made no mistake in estimating their distance from an object. They circled round the room, flying in and out of the corners, skimming just below the ceiling, and hovering over the furniture, but never coming in contact with anything. Nor did they dash themselves against the window-panes, as birds would have done in similar circumstances, but they treated the glass in precisely the same manner as the walls of the room. After satisfying themselves that there was no mode of escape from the room, they began to settle down on the tops of the architraves of the doors and windows, hanging, head downwards, by the claws of their forewings. Ultimately they collected in clusters of four or five, cuddling quite close to one another, and they were then easily transferred to their cage.”