G. M. Thomson

“ 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.” ”

“ The animals, therefore, during the time they are “in velvet” are more than usually careful to protect their heads, and are inoffensive even to strangers. When the antlers have ceased to grow, the velvet dries up, and the deer rub their horns against any neighbouring trees and force them into the soft earth until the membrane is quite rubbed off. Up to this time they have lived a kind of solitary existence, but now they go forth in their full vigour, seek out their future mates, and fight any other stags which dare to dispute their ascendancy. ”

“ There are no canine teeth at all; consequently it is easy to recognize the skull of a rodent by its dentition. The animals are mostly small, the beaver being about the largest; while some kinds of mice are hardly more than a couple of inches long.
Seven species of rodents have been introduced into this country at one time or another. Of these, three species of rat, the mouse, and the guinea-pig belong to the simple-toothed rodents—that is, they never have at any period of their life more than two incisors in the upper jaw. The rabbit and the hare belong to the double-toothed rodents. ”

“ 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 [Pg 62] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The game in New Zealand is the property either of the State or of the acclimatization societies, and public opinion on the subject of its destruction is lax in comparison with what it is in countries where game is looked upon as something reserved for and sacred to the sporting instincts of a small, self-constituted, and select class. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They were, then, the pioneers in starting the introduction of European forms by giving the Natives pigs, goats, fowls, and seeds of several plants. Other animals and plants were brought here from time to time, and as white people increased in number, and gradually occupied much of the land and brought it into cultivation, these introduced forms in certain localities soon displaced many of the native forms. All the thickly peopled and settled parts of New Zealand are much more like parts of Europe as far as animals and plants are concerned than they are like the New Zealand which Cook knew. ”

“ The opossum is not a grass-eating animal. It will eat white or red clover, sweetbrier shoots and seeds, but if an opossum is caged and fed on grass it will die of starvation. Also, if it were fed on turnips it would take as much to feed twelve opossums as one sheep would eat. When I and my brother were catching opossums for the Southland Acclimatization Society we fed them on carrots, boiled wheat, bread, boiled tea-leaves with sugar, and anything sweet. The damage the opossums would do running at large would be very little, seeing that they never come on to open country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ CHAPTER III. UNGULATA—WILD PIGS. Most people think they know all about pigs, and hardly associate them with wild life in New Zealand. They usually consider them the dirtiest creatures on earth, and yet, with remarkable inconsistency, they eat ham and bacon without inquiring too particularly how the animals producing them were reared or fed. The pig is naturally one of the cleanest animals and most particular feeders known, and it is only the filthy way in which most people keep them which is responsible for their popular reputation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hares can swim well, and have been seen crossing an arm of the sea a mile wide. Hares do not burrow, but live in a small hollow on the surface of the ground, which is known as the “form.” They select a shady spot in summer, a sunny one in winter, and go under cover when it rains. They live chiefly in cultivated country, but in New Zealand are not uncommon on grass-land and on river-beds, though I have met with them far up the slopes of Mount Egmont. They feed on most vegetable materials. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These early European voyagers found that the Maoris, whom they met for the first time, and who were far more numerous than they are now, had no domestic animals except dogs, which they kept for food. They also found that a rat was very common in many parts; but they met with no other four-footed animals, except, probably, lizards.
So Cook and those who followed him thought it would be a good thing for the country, and for the Europeans who might come later to live in it, if the best and most useful animals and plants which occurred in Britain were brought to New Zealand. ”

“ When pursued the hare has the art of making sudden turns in its course, known as ‘doubles’ or ‘wrenches,’ by which the dogs in chase of it are thrown out. Greyhounds are swifter of foot than hares, but they are incapable of changing their course so sharply, and thus, while they are carried some distance onwards by their own impetus, their intended victim is making off in a different direction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When I go to work in the garden I turn up numerous earthworms, nearly all belonging to introduced species—unless I start to trench in new ground, when I come on native species. The wood-lice are introduced; so are the earwigs, which are so common in the north end of Dunedin; so are all the slugs and snails. The bees and humble-bees are introduced, as are the large drone-flies which visit so many of our flowers in autumn and early winter. Nearly all the plants in our fields, orchards, and gardens, cultivated ones and weeds alike, are of foreign origin ”

“ One has become very rare; the other is on the brink of extinction, and may, indeed, even now have ceased to exist. They are popularly called the ‘short-tailed’ and the ‘long-tailed.’ As if to make up in one respect for deficiency in another, short-tail has long ears, and long-tail has short ones.” I do not think this estimate of their occurrence is a correct one. Bats still occur in forest regions, and in the wide and quite unsettled areas lying between the open country of Otago and Southland and the West Coast Sounds it is quite probable that the short-tailed species is still to be met with. ”

“ The pairing season in New Zealand is in March or April, and at that time the stags are dangerous creatures. They drop their antlers usually about September, the youngest being the latest to do so. The fawns are born in November or December, and the animals continue to increase in bulk and strength till they are about twelve years old. They probably do not live more than twenty years, “though superstition credits them with very many more.”
Wherever they are abundant red deer live mostly on certain trees and shrubs, and eat grass only when other food is not obtainable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ At the present time wild pigs are still common in nearly all scrub or thin bush country which is not too near settlement, and to those who like the element of danger in their hunting they afford good sport. They are usually pursued by dogs, often specially trained for the purpose, which after a time succeed in bailing up their prey. The pigs prefer to take their stand in the hollow of a tree or some such locality, and an old boar will often do considerable damage to the dogs before he is despatched. ”