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

CHAPTER XII.

This was not Forster’s experience, for in his account of the second voyage of Cook (in 1773) he says, “Our fellow-voyagers [Furneaux in the ‘Adventure’] found immense numbers of rats upon the Hippah Rock [Queen Charlotte Sound], so that they were obliged to put some large jars in the ground level with the surface, into which these vermin fell during the night by running backwards and forwards, and great numbers of them were caught in this manner.” It is now almost certain that this native rat was the same species (Mus exulans) as is still common in many of the South Sea islands and throughout the Pacific, and it probably came with the original immigrants, the ancestors of the Morioris and Maoris. It is, however, probable that the common European black rat (Mus rattus) came also into the country with the various ships which touched at these shores from 1769 onwards. Indeed, Yates, who wrote in 1835, says, “The Natives tell us that rats were introduced in the first ship by Tasman.” He is certainly not an authority on the subject, and too much importance need not be attached to his statement; but it is nevertheless interesting. In Cassell’s Natural History, Dallas, who writes on the Rodentia, says, “New Zealand at the time of its discovery harboured a rat known as the forest-rat, or Maori rat, which was a favourite article of food with the Natives, and is now almost extinct. It has been proved by Captain Hutton to be identical with our black rat (Mus rattus), and was probably introduced by the ancestors of the Maoris.”

I do not know when this was written, for Messrs. Cassell and Co. take the precaution not to put dates on many of their books. But Hutton, in vol. 20 of the “Transactions of the New Zealand Institute” (1888), speaks of the rats which invaded Picton and the Marlborough Sounds as Mus maorium, and says, “This rat is certainly different from Mus huegeli, from Fiji, and, I should think, from M. exulans.” The whole subject has recently been investigated by Oldfield Thomas, who is the greatest living authority in this group, and he is certainly of opinion that the kiore, or Maori rat, was the common Pacific species, M. exulans. Endless confusion occurs, however, among early writers in speaking of rats and their species, and this must be borne in mind in reading the accounts of these animals.

The Rev. R. Taylor—who is not always, however, a reliable authority—says that this Maori rat was in general size about one-third that of the brown, or Norway, rat. The Maoris used to make elaborate preparations to catch them, and hundreds of them would be captured at one hunting. He says the animal is reported to run only in a straight line, and that the Maoris made special lines of roads in order to lead them into their traps, which were baited with miro and other berries. If these roads were crooked, they said, the rats ran into the forest at the bends. They fed entirely on vegetable matter, and were greatly prized as food by the Natives, who also extracted much oil from them.

The native rat quickly disappeared before other rats and also cats; it was extremely rare thirty or forty years ago, and is probably quite extinct now. As, however, the species is common in Polynesia, occasional immigrants may arrive in New Zealand from time to time. The popular belief among both Maoris and Europeans was that it was exterminated by the Norway rat (Mus decumanus). It is, however, probable that the latter is a more recent immigrant than the old European black rat, which is still an extremely common animal here. That the Maori rat was once very abundant seems to be proved by the fact that the Natives always erected their storehouses for food on various kinds of piles as a protection against the depredations of these animals. This habit, according to Judge Mailing (“Pakeha Maori”), was the custom before Europeans landed in the country.

Tancred, writing of Canterbury in 1856, says, “The native rat forms numerous burrows, rendering the soil unsafe for a horse.” He also repeats the statement about its being exterminated by that formidable invader the Norway rat. Mr. W. T. L. Travers, writing in 1869, says, “It has been the fashion to assume that before the arrival of Europeans in this colony this creature [the native rat] was common, and to attribute its destruction to the European rat; and, indeed, the Natives have been credited with a proverb in relation to this point. It is not in effect impossible that the ultimate destruction of those which still existed when trade was first opened between Europeans and the Natives, long after the colonization of New Zealand, 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 [the South] Island for upwards of forty years that they never saw a specimen.”

Speaking of Nelson in 1842, Judge Broad said, “Native rats were an intolerable nuisance; they ate everything, ran about the houses in the dark, and had no fear of man. They drove the cats away, and only disappeared when rat-killing dogs were introduced.” I do not think these were native rats at all, for the latter ate only vegetable matter, and these vermin seemed to eat everything.

Dr. Hocken has an interesting statement in his “Early History of New Zealand,” as follows: “In 1840 Messrs. Dodds and Davis, of Sydney, established a farming settlement at Riccarton, close to where Christchurch now stands, and sent down James Heriot (or Hariot) as manager, two farm hands, and two teams of bullocks. They ploughed and cultivated about 30 acres of land and secured their crops. But in less than a year they decided to abandon all further efforts. Numberless rats attacked the garnered stores, and the bar at the mouth of the river or estuary proved a sad obstacle to shipping whatever grain had been spared by the scourge of rats.” We do not know now which species this was, though I think it was probably the black rat.

It is rather interesting that in 1870 Sir Walter Buller wrote a paper “On the New Zealand Rat,” and he both figured and described the European black rat (Mus rattus). I have already said that this rat probably arrived with some of the first ships which came to the country. Oldfield Thomas in a paper written in 1897 in the “Proceedings of the Zoological Society” says that the rats normally inhabiting ships are not, as is commonly supposed, Mus decumanus, but Mus rattus, and in most cases these are of the grey variety of that animal, with white belly, though the black form may often be caught in the same ship as the grey.

The black rat became enormously abundant in the early days of settlement, and moved about the country in vast armies. The settlers, bushfellers, and sawmill hands of fifty or seventy years ago recorded how invasions of them in countless swarms used to move through their district, climbing everywhere, and eating everything before them that was of a vegetable nature. Oldfield Thomas, in the article already referred to, says, “All the world over Mus rattus takes to roofs and trees on meeting its formidable rival, Mus decumanus, to which it leaves the gutters and cellars.”

In early days in Southland we often heard about rat invasions, and the popular belief then was that these were migrations of native rats. I think there is little doubt that they were black rats, which are not necessarily black-coloured. I propose to quote now from various writers on the subject, to show how common these rodents were at times.

Taylor White states that on the west coast of the South Island they came in vast crowds, climbed trees, tent poles and ropes, and ate everything. On the shores of Lake Wakatipu they lived under the dead leaves of the wild-spaniard or spear-grass (Aciphylla squarrosa and A. Colensoi).

Rutland records how, in 1856, the district of Collingwood, on the western side of Blind Bay, was visited by a swarm, and in 1863 he was informed of a swarm on the Shotover, Otago. I have heard of this one also. Old miners used to tell how they were nearly eaten out of provisions by an invasion of rats. Repeated swarms occurred in Picton in 1872, 1878, 1880, 1884, and 1888. Rutland says, “These rat-swarms invariably take place in spring. A few of the animals appear in August; they increase in numbers till November, when all disappear again gradually as they came. While in a locality dead rats are seen lying about in all directions—on roads, in gardens, and elsewhere. Very few have any marks of violence on their bodies; nor have they died of hunger, since, on examination, they are generally found fat. In 1884, in Picton, forty-seven dead rats were found lying together under the floor of the sitting-room in one house. In another thirty-seven were found dead under the kitchen. The whole town was pervaded with the odour of dead rats. The average weight of a full-grown specimen is about 2 oz. The fur on the upper portion of the body is dark brown, inclining to black; on the lower portion white or greyish-white. They run awkwardly and slowly on the ground, but run very quickly on the trees. When suddenly startled or pursued they cry out with fear. The extremely few females that occur amongst the countless hordes is a fact that shows that, if breeding does take place at all during these periods of travel, it must be on a very limited scale.”

I think a probable partial explanation of this problem is that only the males migrate, while the females, which are producing young at that very season—the beginning of spring—remain in their usual haunts.

“They do little damage, their food being green vegetables. Though they enter dwellinghouses and barns, it is evidently not in quest of food, as shown by corn and other eatables being left untouched by them.” Rutland adds, “Among English country people, who have the best opportunity of observing them, it is commonly asserted that in litters of young rats the males produced outnumbered the females by about seven to one.”

Meeson describes a plague of rats in 1884: “Nelson and Marlborough—in other words, the whole of the extreme northern portion of the South Island of New Zealand—is enduring a perfect invasion. Living rats are sneaking in every corner, scuttling across every path; their dead bodies in various stages of decay, and in many cases more or less mutilated, strew the roads, fields, and gardens, pollute the wells and streams in all directions. Whatever kills the animals does not succeed in materially diminishing their numbers. Young and succulent crops, as of wheat and peas, are so ravaged as to be unfit for and not worth the trouble of cutting and harvesting. A young farmer the other day killed with a stout stick two hundred in a couple of hours in his wheat-field.” Among reasons suggested for the visitation he suggests the pressure of famine: “Last summer was very wet, and last winter very cold; the amount of snow lying on the high lands in the interior was very great. Another is the excessive increase in numbers, producing an intense struggle for existence.” It is thus seen that his conclusions are somewhat different from those reached by Mr. Rutland, who did not think that hunger was an impelling cause. He goes on to say, “I have examined many of these animals, and have not found a single female. One of my neighbours has examined two hundred of them, and a Maori, at the pa beyond Wakapuaka, one hundred, with the same negative result. Some females have, however, been taken, and in one case they were found breeding. He is more like a big field-mouse than a Norway rat; and besides being considerably smaller he is slightly darker in colour, and less malodorous. He climbs trees and flax-plants, and is phytophagous rather than carnivorous.”

Hutton, writing in 1887, said, “The rat appears to have invaded Picton at the end of March, and to have suddenly disappeared by the 20th April. Old Maoris recognized it as the rat they used to eat in former times, and said that swarming on to the lowlands periodically was always characteristic of it. These rats were often noticed climbing trees. In the Pelorus, where they stopped longer, they built nests, like birds, in trees.”

Kingsley, in 1894, records it as nesting on the branches of small trees, 4 ft. to 5 ft. from the ground, near Totaranui, and gives examples from Motueka, Riwaka, Collingwood, Nelson, and Taranaki. I myself have seen tall thorn hedges at Whangarei full of their nests—large, shapeless structures, which at first I thought must have been made by house-sparrows which had taken to building in hedges.

At the present time black rats are extraordinarily common about Christchurch. Mr. Speight, the curator, informed me three years ago that Canterbury Museum was infested with them. A good deal of the damage said to be done to orchards by opossums is almost certainly the work of the black rat.

Marriner reports that he met with grey rats at North-west Bay in Campbell Island, which Waite, of the Canterbury Museum, thought were probably specimens of Mus rattus.

The brown, or Norway, rat (Mus decumanus) is ubiquitous, and, though there is no record of its arrival in New Zealand, it no doubt arrived here in the earliest days of settlement. Early in last century Russell, or Kororareka, in the Bay of Islands, was the chief port of the young colony, and rats must have become very abundant there. Charles Darwin, who visited the Bay of Islands in 1835, says in his account of the voyage of the “Beagle,” “It is said that the common Norway rat, in the short space of two years, annihilated in this north end of the Island the New Zealand species.” Dieffenbach, writing some time later, said he never could obtain a native rat, “owing to the extermination carried on against it by the European rat.” There is no doubt that this species has had a considerable share in the destruction of the native avifauna, and it is also responsible for much of the difficulty experienced by acclimatization societies and private individuals in their attempts to establish introduced game-birds, but I do not think it is responsible for the disappearance of the Maori rat.

During visits to Stewart Island and the West Coast Sounds between 1874 and 1880 I was struck by the abundance of these animals in regions uninhabited and almost unvisited by man. One day I remember that the late Mr. Robert Paulin and I emerged from the bush on the south side of Thule, in Paterson Inlet, when the tide was low, exposing a wide stretch of beach nearly a mile long. We were much impressed by noticing that the whole beach was alive with large rats, which were feeding on the shell-fish and stranded animals which the tide had left exposed. As soon as they saw us they ran for the shelter of the bush; they were literally in hundreds. I am inclined to think that the rat which frequents all sheltered beaches on the coast is this common brown rat, and that it depends on the animal life of the sea-coast for its livelihood.

In 1868 H. H. Travers reported these brown rats as very abundant in the Chatham Islands; and Captain Bollons, of the “Hinemoa,” states that they are very numerous round the homestead on Campbell Island.

A few years ago, when a scare arose about the bubonic plague, a feeble and intermittent crusade against rats was inaugurated, especially in Auckland; but it was, as might have been expected, absolutely futile. It is, of course, well known that rats are the carriers of the plague germs, or at least that they harbour the fleas which are the real carriers. In the fifth and sixth chapters of I Samuel there is a very interesting account of the plague which attacked the cities of Philistia, and which produced emerods—that is, haemorrhoids or swollen glands—as a conspicuous symptom. The lords of the Philistines, in sending back the ark of God to the Israelites, because they thought it was the cause of the malady which affected them, accompanied it by models of emerods in gold, and also golden mice. These were probably golden rats, and seem to show that in these early days, three thousand years ago, the connection between the plague and the rats was well recognized.

While brown rats are still very abundant, especially about the towns, there is no doubt that the spread of weasels throughout the country has vastly diminished their numbers, especially in the open, for a weasel prefers a rat to a rabbit any day.

CHAPTER XIII.

The mouse has never been found very far from the haunts of men, either in this country or elsewhere. It is abundant in all settled parts, and is also common on the Auckland, Antipodes, and Campbell Islands. Though it follows man so closely, it frequently stays in localities where men have been and have left, and there it is apt to have a bad time. Mr. Philpott, writing to me on the 2nd January, 1918, said, “There is a plague of mice in the district west of the Waiau. From Bluecliff to the Knife and Steel, near the Big River and beyond, each hut [the Government huts on the now abandoned telephone track to Puysegur Point] was overrun with them. And not only at the huts, but on the beach and in the dense bush, wherever we went, they were plentiful. At the Hump, near Lake Hauroto, they were as numerous as elsewhere. This prevalence of mice is certainly not usual; I have been on the Hump four or five times since 1911, and last year tramped along to the Knife and Steel, but, apart from an odd one or two, no mice were in evidence on former trips. One noticeable thing about these little creatures was their boldness: they were evidently very hungry. The wekas caught many of them, swallowing them whole, head first.”

How terrible a pest these rodents can be is shown by the state of affairs which has prevailed in the wheat-growing districts of Australia during the past season or two. The following note, taken from the Melbourne Age of the 17th July, 1917, gives some idea of the dimensions the pest has reached: “At Brooklyn there are nearly seven million bags of wheat, forming three and a half miles of stacks, and it is estimated that close on two million bags have yet to be railed thither from country stations. At Spotswood three million bags, most from the 1915–16 crop, are stacked.... The mouse plague in its myriads has attacked the Brooklyn stacks. The very air reeks with the smell of the mice, dead and alive. Daily to Brooklyn roll from seven hundred to eight hundred railway-trucks, loaded at the country stations mainly in the mouse-riddled areas of the Wimmera and the Mallee. From the Goulburn Valley the trucks bring with them, it is observed, mice that are few in comparison with those from the Wimmera and the Mallee. Every truck from these two regions contributes its mice to the swarming community at Brooklyn. And of the manner of the reception of these mice the instances afforded on an inspection on a week-day are at least suggestive. The average truck, when rolled alongside the wheat-stacks, is received by a handful of labourers. The bags are hauled up by tackle from truck to stack. When the last bag is lifted the doors of the truck are thrown open, and the chaff and the spoilt wheat broomed out. With the waste come flying out the mice—no great number in some trucks, but, clearly, on the average delivery of trucks a day, adding hundreds of mice to the pest, which has bitten deeply into the stacks at Brooklyn. Scattering, scampering, the mice race down the rails. A fox-terrier or two, wearing a blasé demeanour, condescend to catch a couple of mice as an example to the others. The rest of the new arrivals find shelter in the base of the wheat-stacks, or the low pile of damp, reeking bags of wheat awaiting reconditioning. Little if any effort seems to be made by the labourers to check the pest in an ordinary truck; and, indeed, a great deal of effort would be needed to be effective, and the reception and despatch of trucks must be inevitably delayed. Only when a badly infested truck, smeared with the flour of mouse-gnawn wheat, announces its contents by a vile reek of rotting mouse—an announcement beyond all risk of contradiction—it is detached, hauled off to another track, and left loaded to await special treatment.”

Two methods are adopted in Victoria to cope with the pest in the wheat-trains. One is to plug all the holes in the truck, place a sack in each corner with its mouth propped open with an iron hoop, and then proceed to lift the bags of wheat out of the truck on to the stack. The escaping mice jump into the sacks until they are nearly half-full. But if the mice are too numerous to be dealt with in this way, then they are gassed in the truck. I am not sure whether carbon disulphide or carbon dioxide is employed—probably the former. This takes at least an hour, and perhaps ten thousand mice are afterwards shovelled out of each truck; and, as hundreds of trucks full of wheat were arriving at Brooklyn each day, it is easily seen that the plague certainly was not stayed. What happens at Brooklyn has been happening in other parts of Australia, and we may be thankful that in New Zealand we have no such gigantic pests to cope with.

As the mouse breeds all the year round and produces five or six young at a birth, its rapid increase under favourable circumstances is easily understood.

The Guinea-pig (Cavia porcellus).

On the banks of the Rio de la Plata, and in the country lying to the northwards, a little animal, considered by many naturalists to be the wild form from which our domesticated guinea-pig is derived, is found in thousands. It is known as the “restless cavy.” It generally lives in moist situations, usually near the border of the forest, but never in the forest itself or in the open fields. Other authorities consider that the name “guinea-pig” is a corruption of Guiana-pig, and that the first specimens may have come from that part of America. The prevalent colours of the guinea-pig, as is well known, are white, black, and yellow, and in this respect it differs a good deal from the “restless cavy.”

It is hardly correct to include the guinea-pig among the wild animals of New Zealand, as, although it has been frequently liberated, it has never succeeded in establishing itself. At one time I had a number of guinea-pigs running wild in my garden in Maori Hill, and noticed that violets growing among the grass increased remarkably all the time they were about. The guinea-pigs kept the grass very closely nibbled, but would not touch the violets. These animals had a well-sheltered run under a thick mass of periwinkle which grew along a raised bank. They throve remarkably till a host of little ones, not much bigger than the end of one’s thumb, began to appear. This was too much for the cats in the neighbourhood. These creatures began to haunt the garden day and night. They soon ate all the little ones, and, having acquired a taste for this kind of game, they never stopped till they had destroyed all the stock but a few old bucks. There is no reason why guinea-pigs should not become wild in this country, except for the prevalence of cats.

The only record I find of the introduction of these animals into this country is by the Auckland Acclimatization Society in 1869; but they have been repeatedly brought in by dealers for the last fifty or sixty years. I believe that guinea-pigs are very good for food, for they are very dainty feeders. But there is a considerable prejudice against them on the part of most people. I had a bachelor acquaintance in London who used to give very recherché dinners to his male friends. On one occasion they got a dish of a new and very palatable kind, which they all enjoyed, until they learned that they had been eating guinea-pig, when some of them highly resented their host’s experimenting upon them. But it was only prejudice from which they suffered. They reminded me of the lady who enjoyed stewed eel until she learned what she had been eating, when she promptly retired from the table and managed to get sick.

The family of the cavies, to which the guinea-pig belongs, is chiefly characterized by the form of the teeth. The fore feet have four and the hind feet three toes, all armed with hoof-like nails. The tail is rudimentary or wanting; hence the common warning to children that if one lifts a guinea-pig by the tail the eyes will drop out.

CHAPTER XIV.

The introduction of the rabbit into New Zealand has produced such far-reaching effects and wrought such changes throughout the country that it requires more than the sober language of the naturalist to describe them. One thing is quite certain—namely, that the animal was deliberately introduced into the country not by one individual, but by numbers of persons, and by several acclimatization societies. But no one will accept the blame for their introduction, so I may as well detail all the facts known to me about their early history in New Zealand.

According to the Rev. Richard Taylor, author of “Te Ika a Maui,” the early missionaries were the first to introduce rabbits into the country; but, unfortunately, he gives no dates. If he is correct, however, they were almost certainly brought from New South Wales to the far northern part of the colony between 1820 and 1830. They probably never increased to any great extent, for, though there are rabbits in a few localities north of Whangarei (I will specify localities later), they are scarcely a pest there.

I am told that Jerningham Wakefield reported them as being placed on Mana and Kapiti Islands, in Cook Strait, in 1840 or 1841, but I cannot find any verification of the record. The first definite notice I have discovered is in Mr. Tuckett’s diary of his expedition to the South Island, which is printed as an appendix to Dr. Hocken’s “Contributions to the Early History of New Zealand.” Speaking of the country between the mouths of the Clutha and Mataura Rivers, Tuckett writes, under date the 19th May, 1944, “Palmer has grown wheat and barley as well as potatoes, and has plenty of fine fowls and ducks and some goats.... Returning from Tapuke [Taukupu], we landed on the island, and, with the assistance of a capital beagle, caught six rabbits alive and uninjured.” He does not say whether any were liberated on the mainland, nor whether it was possible for those on the island to get ashore.

Mr. James Begg, who has given me some very valuable information as to the earliest attempts to introduce these animals, tells me that “when Willsher and party settled at Port Molyneux in the early ‘forties’ they sent to Sydney for rabbits, but whether they obtained them or not I am unable to say. From early days there was at least one colony of rabbits on the upper Waitaki. These remained quite local in their habits, and did not increase to any great extent. They were finally overwhelmed by the invasion of the grey rabbit from the south. The late Mr. Telford, of Clifton, introduced some rabbits and bred them in hutches till they numbered about fifty. They were then liberated on Clifton, near the banks of the Molyneux, but died out in a short time. This was about the year 1864. Mr. Clapcott also liberated some at the old homestead at Popotunoa Station [Clinton], but they also failed to thrive, and disappeared. It is probable that there were other attempts to acclimatize rabbits, all more or less unsuccessful.”

From the point of view of a naturalist the failure of these attempts is very interesting. It shows that there is a vast difference in the aggressive power of the various breeds, for the country on which these various lots of rabbits failed to make good has since been completely overrun by other rabbits. It may be that they were unable to establish themselves until a certain amount of clearing had been done, and till a considerable number of wekas had been destroyed by tussock fires and other means. Whatever the cause, it is the case that no rabbits were able to establish themselves freely in New Zealand before 1860.

Dr. Menzies, who was at the time Superintendent of the Province of Southland, is usually credited with having been the successful introducer of them to the south of the South Island, an achievement the credit of which has not been very eagerly sought after. They were liberated on the sandhills between the ocean and the New River, a place known as Sandy Point.

According to Mr. Huddlestone, silver-grey rabbits were first introduced into Nelson in or about 1865; but there is no record as to what came of this importation. Sir George Grey also appears to have introduced them at or about the same time, for in the annual report of the Canterbury Acclimatization Society in 1866 it is said that “an enclosure has been set apart for the silver-grey rabbits presented by Sir George Grey, which have thriven well and increased to a great extent, and have been distributed to members far and near.” Later in the same year the society passed this minute: “The suggestion of giving as a reward for the destruction of hawks and wild cats some silver-grey rabbits was approved.”

There is a very popular impression that the Otago Acclimatization Society has no responsibility in connection with the rabbit plague. Well, here are the figures taken from one of their own reports: “In 1866 the society liberated sixty rabbits, twenty-three in 1867, and eighteen in 1868. There is no record as to where these came from.”

These are the only records I have been able to secure so far as to the introduction of rabbits into this colony, but there is still a source of information to be searched—namely, the publications of the Provincial Government of Southland. But there can be no doubt, I think, that what happened in the south happened elsewhere at every port where settlement took place, and that private individuals at Nelson, Wellington, New Plymouth, and Napier also imported rabbits. But when the animals became a pest, and their increase was recognized to be a calamity to the country, every one was desirous of repudiating the responsibility for their introduction. Thus the framer of the annual report of the Canterbury Society for 1889, not having read the statement in the report for 1866, says, concerning “the rabbit, that great scourge to our large runholders—that the introduction of these cannot be laid to the charge of this society.” Similarly, Mr. A. Bathgate, of Dunedin, in 1897, wrote, “It is to them [the Provincial Government of Southland] that we are indebted for the presence of the rabbit.”

The repudiation of the responsibility for the rabbits is almost as funny as that for the sparrows. As soon as an animal turns out differently from what was expected of it, and becomes a pest instead of a blessing, then no one will admit having had anything to do with the initial mistake of bringing it into the country.

From 1866 onwards the spread of the rabbits was phenomenal. I quote part of Mr. Begg’s account of this increase: “About the year 1874 they began to make their presence felt in an unpleasant manner. By 1878 they had reached Lake Wakatipu, leaving a devastated country behind them. At the same time they had reached as far east as the Clutha River, and in a few years later had overrun the greater part of Otago as well as the whole of Southland. Those were evil days for farmers in that part of New Zealand, and especially for the squatters, who occupied large areas of grazing-country. The fine natural grasses on which the sheep and cattle grazed were almost totally destroyed. Sheep perished from starvation by hundreds of thousands, and it is no exaggeration to say that the majority of the squatters were ruined. On the old Burwood Station the number of sheep fell in one year from 119,000 to 30,000. This was partly due to heavy snow, but the rabbits prevented any recovery. It is doubtful if the same country to-day carries more than 40,000 sheep. From the year 1878 onwards immense areas of grazing-land were abandoned, as the owners gave up the unequal struggle with the rabbits. In the early days hunting with dogs, shooting, digging out the warren, poisoning with various baits, and trapping were the methods by which farmers tried to rid themselves of the pest. Later, wire netting, the introduction of stoats, weasels, and ferrets, fumigating the burrows with poisonous gases (such as carbon disulphide and hydrocyanic acid), and the stimulus given to trapping by the export trade in frozen rabbits, have been relied upon to reduce their numbers. In the writer’s experience practically no progress was made in reducing the numbers of rabbits till about the year 1895. From that year there has been a steady diminution. For twenty years the rabbits had the upper hand, and, though many millions were killed annually, no reduction in their abundance was noticeable. In the last twenty years there has been a steady decrease. Large areas of hill country in the wetter districts are now completely clear of rabbits, though they still persist in favourable situations. In the dry country in Central Otago they are still very troublesome and very vigorous, and their evil effects are there seen on hundreds of square miles of country, once the finest grazing-land in New Zealand, now little better than a desert.”

It must not be assumed that every one regards the rabbit as a nuisance. Many a successful farmer of to-day got a start as a rabbiter. The killing of rabbits actually became one of the principal industries of the province. Their presence directly led to the subdivision of large estates, and may have been quite as effective in this direction as all the legislation on the subject. Since the war rabbit-skins have become extraordinarily valuable, so that, instead of landholders paying for the destruction of rabbits, rabbiters offer premiums for permission to go on to land to trap the rabbits.

The introduction of rabbits had a lasting effect on acclimatization generally. Before their advent partridges and pheasants had become numerous, but they have entirely disappeared in Otago. In the effort to cope with the rabbits the country was annually sown with poisoned grain. This had a disastrous effect on both native and imported game. Had rabbits not become a nuisance it is unlikely that weasels and other vermin would have been introduced. These animals are largely responsible for the decrease in the numbers of native birds, and also make the successful introduction of new varieties more difficult.

The economic waste caused by the vast increase of rabbits in New Zealand is incalculable, and certainly represents a loss in the stock-carrying capacity of the country which probably runs every year into millions of pounds. It is not only that they eat up food which would support some millions more sheep than are at present reared, but they destroy large areas of country, and yield very little return for the damage they do. The annual export of approximately three million rabbits, valued at (in pre-war times) about £70,000, and of some eight millions of skins, valued at about £115,000, is all the return they give, but it represents only a small proportion of the pest. In all parts where rabbits abound their destruction entails a heavy expense on the occupiers of the land. There are no data available to enable any one to estimate how many rabbits are destroyed every year, but far more are killed by phosphorus than by trapping. The latter method alone furnishes any statistical data; the former is an unknown quantity, but it represents a very large figure.

Probably the most ghastly exhibition of the work of rabbits is to be found in the grass-denuded districts of Central Otago, parts of which have been reduced to the condition of a desert. It is improbable that this state of affairs could have been brought about by rabbits alone. Before their advent the runholders who had possession of the arid regions, in which the rainfall probably averages 10 in. to 12 in. annually, and certainly never exceeds 15 in., were doing their best to denude the surface of the ground by overstocking with sheep and by frequent burning. The latter was resorted to because many of the large tussock-forming grasses, especially such as the silver-tussock (Poa caespitosa), yielded coarse and rather unpalatable fodder, but after burning the tufts a crop of tender green leaves sprung up, which were very readily eaten. Unfortunately the burning not only got rid of most of the coarse growth of the tussocks, but it also swept off the numerous bottom grasses which occupied the intervening spaces, which were the mainstay of the depasturing flocks. Even before the rabbits arrived the work of denudation of the grass covering had been proceeding apace through the causes mentioned. Thus Buchanan, writing in 1865, said, “It is no wonder that many of the runs require 8 acres to feed one sheep, according to an official estimate.” Mr. Petrie thought this an unduly severe estimate, “as in the mid-‘seventies’ the sheep-runs of Central Otago were reputed to carry at least one sheep to 3 acres, or somewhat less.”

Mr. Petrie, who has reported to the Department of Agriculture on these grass-denuded lands of Central Otago, knows more about this subject than any one else who has written on it, and I quote him at some length. He says, “Before the rabbit invasion began the hill-slopes carried a fairly rich and varied covering of tussock and other grasses, and, except on the steeper rock and sun-baked faces, had not been seriously depleted even in the early ‘nineties.’ The earlier stages of this depletion may now be seen in several of the Central Otago ranges, as on the spurs of the Rough Ridge and the Morven Hills districts. The northern slopes of the spurs are almost, in many instances, entirely bare of grass, while the southern shaded slopes still carry a fair amount of pasture. The grass covering generally stops abruptly at the bottoms of the valleys, even when those are not worn into water-channels. The vastly greater depletion of the pasture on the northern slopes is easy enough to understand. They are more exposed to the sun and to the frequent violent parching north-west winds; they lose their covering of snow earlier in spring than the southern slopes, and are thus more closely grazed at a critical season for the pasture; and sheep at all times show a preference for feeding on the warmer sunny slopes. When the pasture on the exposed slopes fails, that on the shaded slopes has to feed all the stock that is about, and unless the stocking is reduced to meet the new conditions the remaining grasses are sooner or later eaten out. The desert, with all its problems, is then established.”

In his account of how desert conditions arise in Central Otago Mr. Petrie refers only to the effects produced by sheep, because it is the loss in sheep-carrying capacity which is so serious; but later on, after describing a typical specimen of the country, and showing that in inaccessible situations a considerable variety of vigorous grasses live on, he adds, “This is one of the facts that go to indicate that the extermination of the grasses in this desert country is mainly due to eating out by overstocking, rabbits as well as sheep being included among the stock carried.... The desert and the greatly denuded lands are not wholly destitute of vegetation. In most of their lower areas greyish, flattened, firm, nearly circular patches of scabweed (Raoulia australis and R. lutescens) are thickly dotted about the bare ground. Though otherwise useless, these moss-like composite plants help to keep the soil from being blown or washed away, and when old supply, in the decayed centres of the patches, spots with some amount of humus where grass-seeds can more readily settle and grow.” These plants are never eaten by either sheep or rabbits.

In regard to other native plants, rabbits have nearly exterminated the wild spear-grasses (Aciphylla squarrosa and A. Colensoi), which used to be so abundant. They particularly attack these plants when the ground is covered with snow. Mr. Petrie, writing me three years ago, said, “When I first visited inland Otago, in 1874, Aciphylla Colensoi was most abundant. In riding about it was almost impossible to deviate from well-beaten tracks or roads because the spines pricked the legs and feet of the horses.” In later years these plants have become rare. Captain Hutton, writing me in March, 1892, said, “As to the extermination of the wild-spaniards (Aciphylla), I believe it to be due to rabbits. When I was in the Nelson District in 1872–73 there were no rabbits on the eastern side of the Upper Wairau near Tarndale, but they were abundant on the western side. Spaniards were abundant on the eastern side, but almost destroyed on the western. The rabbits seemed to burrow under the plants, and then eat the roots.”

Several species of Celmisia (notably C. densiflora) have been greatly checked, and others are almost exterminated. Mr. B. C. Aston, in his ascent of the Kaimanawas in 1914–15, found that at a height of 4,200 ft. Panax Colensoi was nearly exterminated by rabbits, which had ring-barked all the young trees. This mischief is done after heavy falls of snow, when the rabbits are driven down from the tussock-land into the gullies of the scrub and forest zones. Trees of Panax Edgerleyi from 19 ft. to 20 ft. high were found to be ring-barked and dead.

In a good many rabbit-infested districts, particularly in the North Island, these animals have aided very materially in producing a certain amount of erosion and washing-down of alluvium by burrowing extensively in the banks of rivers and small streams. When floods came down, these undermined portions were commonly swept away where the firmer banks resisted the impact of the water. Dr. C. A. Cotton, of Wellington, considers that this action has caused a slight rejuvenation of erosion in certain districts and river-systems. Cattle, sheep, and goats assist in this work, but rabbits are the most active agents in it. The Rev. A. Don, writing to me in 1901, said, “The rabbits, by stripping the ground of vegetation and burrowing into the faces of the slopes, are converting what were once nice green hillsides into shingle-slopes, because when once the face is so bared and its surface broken it begins to slip.” Mr. Petrie also refers to this process in his report, as follows: “The soil on the grass-denuded slopes, which is by no means infertile, being no longer held together by the roots of plants, is being rapidly removed by wind and rain, and pebbles and angular stones are now closely dotted over great stretches of hillside that not many years ago were covered with soil. On the steeper slopes, indeed, the soil is being rapidly sluiced down into the gullies and thence into the river, and deep, narrow, chasm-like watercourses are being dug out.”

I was at one time under the impression that in this new country, where the causes—especially the natural enemies—which kept them in check in their original home were wanting, and there seemed to be nothing to arrest their development in any direction, there might arise new varieties of rabbits, with modified habits, structure, &c. Particularly did it seem likely that colour variations would thrive unchecked, and the traveller passing through certain districts in Otago is certainly surprised at the number of conspicuously coloured animals to be seen. I was down at Romahapa recently and saw some rabbits at the edge of the bush, and among a dozen of them there were some with white, buff, and black. I was informed also that there are a number of them in the district with a white ruff round the neck. Other observers bear me out in the prevalence of coloured varieties among the wild rabbits. Thus Mr. W. H. Gates, of Skipper’s, a keen observer of nature, writing me two years ago, said, “As for colour, they are of all colours—grey-and-white, tan-and-white, grey with a black ridge down the backbone, grey with a white ring round their necks, cream with a darker shade down the backbone, and buff.” Other observers speak of the prevalence of black, black-and-white, and yellow rabbits. Grey is certainly the best colour to hide a rabbit in sandy ground covered with somewhat dry herbage, and in a district like Central Otago, where rabbits are as “thick as locomotives”—as a certain Gaelic acquaintance of mine with a limited knowledge of English and of locusts put it—one can almost walk over the rabbits, as long as they sit still, without seeing them. The warning white tail of the rabbit is a danger-signal to other rabbits, for whenever a rabbit is running for shelter its white scut warns all the others which it passes to run also. To find out with some approximation of accuracy whether my idea of the prevalence of coloured rabbits was correct or not, I applied to Mr. R. S. Black, of Dunedin, who is a very large exporter of rabbit-skins, for information. Mr. Black informed me that, while they are of all colours, yet 95 per cent. of the skins exported are grey. The other colours appeal to the eye, but they are not so common, after all.

That the rabbits of aberrant colours should survive is not to be wondered at, seeing that in this country there are no foxes, and neither owls nor hawks large enough or active enough to tackle a full-grown rabbit. The common harrier hawk takes a considerable toll of young rabbits, but is quite unable to keep them in check. In many districts wild cats live mainly on rabbits.

I have from the far north an interesting record of a curious habit among rabbits. Mr. Yarborough, of Kohukohu, writing in August, 1916, tells me that rabbits became quite common in a district near Kawakawa, at the head of the Bay of Islands, many years ago. Recently they have reached the eastern side of the Hokianga River, and it is not unusual to see them occasionally. Then he adds this interesting statement: “I have never heard of any rabbit-burrows, as they appear to breed among the rocks and roots of trees.” Another observer from an adjacent district says that these animals are not uncommon near Kaikohe, where they do make shallow burrows. The comparatively heavy rainfall of Hokianga, amounting to from 60 in. to 70 in. in a year, has no doubt a good deal to do with the comparative scarcity of the rabbit in that part of New Zealand.

CHAPTER XV.

Hares begin to breed when they are about a year old, and produce several broods each year, each consisting of from two to five young. I have been informed that in New Zealand hares usually produce three or four young in a litter, whereas in England they seldom have more than two. It is also stated that the animals are larger here than in Britain. Both statements require verification, but if these are facts they are probably due only to the abundance of the food-supply.

It is just about fifty years since hares were first introduced into New Zealand, and the most remarkable thing about this fact is that the numbers originally brought here were so small. The Otago Acclimatization Society appear to have been the first to bring them here. They got three from Geelong, in Victoria, in 1867, and liberated them at Waihola, where two years later they were reported to be plentiful. Another was obtained in 1868, and three more in 1875. The Canterbury Society got two in 1868 and four in 1873. The Southland Society imported some (the number is not recorded) in 1869 from Victoria, two more in 1871, and two in 1874, and then forty in 1887. The Nelson Society introduced some (again the number is not specified) in 1872, and it is stated that these increased so rapidly as to become a nuisance in the district. These are all the records I can find of importations from abroad into the South Island, and, considering the casual manner and small numbers in which they were introduced, their subsequent increase is most remarkable. They soon spread all over the flatter parts of the Island, keeping mostly about cultivated land, and especially in districts where rabbits were not abundant. They are now common from Foveaux Strait to Cook Strait.

In the North Island the Auckland Society introduced two hares in 1868 and nine in 1871. I can find no other record. From the Auckland District they spread south, and other acclimatization societies assisted to distribute them far and wide. Wellington liberated two in 1874, fourteen in 1875, and four in 1876; and in 1885 reported them as “numerous in the vicinity of Wellington and the lower end of the Wairarapa Valley.” In more recent years they are reported as in large numbers about Marton, increasing about Pahiatua, and as seen in almost every part of the Eketahuna district. The Taranaki Society introduced them in 1876, and they were reported as thriving in 1884. On Mount Egmont at the present time they are common about the bush-line, and in the summer months up to 6,000 ft. In 1905 the Waimarino Society purchased and liberated a number, and protected them for two years. Later on they became so numerous that they were declared to be no longer game, and all restrictions about shooting them were removed. I learn from Mr. E. Phillips Turner, of the New Zealand Forest Department, that they are found all through the volcanic plateau of the North Island from Rotorua to Waiouru.

In no part of New Zealand have they increased to a greater extent than in South Canterbury, where they became so abundant that a considerable export trade sprang up, mostly from the Port of Timaru. Thus the total number of frozen hares exported from New Zealand in 1910 was declared at 10,744, and in 1911 at 11,418. The number has varied in subsequent years, but is still very considerable. It is probable that a good many hares are exported but declared in the Customs returns as rabbits.

In some parts of New Zealand hares tend to become white in the winter season, just as they do in parts of the Old Country, following the same seasonal variations as occur in ferrets, stoats, and other sub-Arctic animals. Several observers state that this is a familiar phenomenon in South Canterbury.

The Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus).

This interesting little animal belongs to an order called the Insectivora, not because they are the only mammals which eat insects, but because the latter creatures, with worms and other “small fry,” constitute the whole, or nearly the whole, of their food. Hedgehogs are small, stoutly-built animals, with very short tails, and the greater part of the hairs on the upper surface are converted into spines. They have the power of rolling themselves into balls, and these spines thus constitute a most powerful defensive armour. The spines are about 1 in. long, and are hard and sharp; they are greyish in colour, with a dark-brown or nearly black ring a little above the middle. The legs are short, so that the animal runs with its belly nearly touching the ground, and the feet have five toes. A full-grown hedgehog is about 10 in. long. When a tame hedgehog is poked on the forehead it puts its head down, erects its bristles like a crest, and utters little short grunts; sometimes they make this grunting noise at night. In the cauldron scene in Macbeth Shakespeare makes the Second Witch say, “Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.”

In the colder parts of Europe the hedgehog becomes torpid in winter, and lies asleep for months in a nest of moss or leaves, usually in a hole or sheltered hollow. I do not know how long it hibernates in New Zealand. It wakes up in spring, very hungry, and in its excursions, which are undertaken at night, it proceeds to make up for lost time, and runs about with a quick shuffling gait. It is particularly fond of beetles, but it eats all sorts of insects, as well as worms, slugs, and small snails. Occasionally it goes for bigger things, such as frogs and mice, young birds, and especially eggs. It has been credited with turning a hen off her nest and eating her eggs. Sometimes it eats vegetables, and I am told that about Christchurch it digs the potatoes out of the rows. On the whole, however, it is a beneficial animal in a garden.