BUSH RATS

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LXIV, Issue 6576, 13 October 1939, Page 3

BUSH RATS

KILLERS 0* NATIVE BIRDS Lovers of native birds will be pleased with the report that traps set for opossums in the forest of Mt. Egmont caught 420 rats, including many bush rats. " Rats are the worst enemies of our birds; and perhaps the bush or tree rat is even more destructive than his grey relative" writes Mr H. GuthrieSmith in "Mutton Birds and Other Birds." After long experience I am conj vinced that at Tutira (Mr GuthrieSmith's estate in Hawke's Bay) the two species of iat do more damage to my local avifauna than scooting, files/ dogs, cats, weasels and birds of prey combined." The well-known naturalist's remarks show how well qualified the bush rat is for preying oh the eggs or nestlings of birds. It is as agfie'

and nimble as a monkey among the branches of trees. "The bush rat's domicile in outward form is not unlike the untidy structure of a house sparrow; and when his quarters lie in farming districts, the nests are con-

spicuous, high on tall hedges of English hawthorn and African boxthorn. In the bush, they may be found in masses of lawjcr, clumps of black vine, thickets of supple-jack and dense shrubberies of tutu. I have seen them also built just like an English Wren's nest into the fibiy rootlets of an overblown tree, or fastened into the clinging rata that often ivies the face of a limestone clilT. Most rarely they are to be found in clefts of trees or as burrows in steep, dry banks." The common grey rat is also a quick clever climber of trees. At dusk, fcy the swan pond of the Wellington Botanical Gardens, a visitor saw a grey rat run swiftly up the midrib of tree-fern frond and leap to another frond. What chance would a nestling '■>ird have agamst such an enemy.'.' Sinoe sportsmen apparently, however, do not realise the great harm rats do because they declare war on harrier hawks, one of the main enemies of the rat.