Fig. 13.—The Brown or Norway 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.