Chapter XXXIV.
The Invasion from the South.

We can now pass to the history of aliens which I have myself seen establish themselves on the run. We can deal first with strangers reaching us from the south, from the Wairarapa and Hastings.

From the former—better that a millstone had been hanged about that district's neck, and that it had been cast into the depths of the sea—have come rabbits and weasels.

From the Hawke's Bay Acclimatisation Society, on the other hand, nothing harmful has emanated; on the contrary, that Society highly disapproved of the liberation of vermin; it could do no more, however, than protest and offer rewards for every weasel, stoat, or polecat taken in its domains; but, alas! the harm had been done—not all the poppy and mandragora, not all the guineas in the world, could stay the plague.

Taking, first of all, species liberated in Hawke's Bay, evidence is unanimous that the goldfinch (Carduelis elegans) proved able at once to adapt himself to his new surroundings. It would, in truth, have been surprising had the bird not flourished; fern-crushing had passed the experimental stage; the far-famed fertile plains surrounding Hastings had been drained; bush-felling, though still in its infancy, had been proved a success. Everywhere fern, flax, and forest were giving place to English grass and those self-imported weeds that flourish with peculiar luxuriance in virgin soils. Amongst them were two plants particularly affected by the goldfinch—the one the sow-thistle, the other the prickly thistle. On every run in Hawke's Bay during the 'seventies and 'eighties the latter flourished over hundreds of acres.¹

From descriptions given me by the late Mr J. N. Williams and others, it was into a countryside where each season new blocks of land were being handled that the goldfinch was freed; it is no matter of surprise that the species flourished exceedingly.

It was in the summer of '83 that I first saw a goldfinch on Tutira. Shearing was in progress; my duty as wool-classer obliged me to be in the shed before five; at that early hour, in scrub close to the wool-shed, the bird was noted, and there for six days he remained about the same spot. I say “he,” for though the plumage of the sexes in this breed is almost indistinguishable, yet I have always believed the bird to be a male,—his feathers were so magnificently resplendent in their sheen and depth of colour, the reds and yellows so deep and pure.

Weather permitting, shearing on a sheep-run starts each season at the same date. Just one year later I was again wool-classing, again walking shedwards, a few minutes before five in the morning. No scrub had been felled in the vicinity of the shed—the clump of manuka and tutu remained as it had been; now, however, where one goldfinch had been observed, a pair had taken possession of the locality. They were not so constant to the little thicket as the pioneer bird had been, but remained within, say, a hundred yards of the original spot for a few days. After that I lost them till autumn, when again a party was seen in the neighbourhood of the shed. We supposed then that the pair must have been male and female, that they must have reared a brood, or couple of broods, and that the little congregation observed must have been parents and offspring in flock. Now, for reasons to be given later, I am not so sure of this; the small party seen may have been with equal likelihood composed of birds following in the wake of the first-seen specimens. At any rate, for several seasons, a thin wedge, or narrow page 330 spear-head, thrust itself more deeply into the run. Then at once the goldfinch became extraordinarily plentiful, enormous flocks tenanting every part of the eastern run. Lastly, normal conditions prevailed; as the soil became thistle-sick, the superabundant food-supply of the species began to fail. In fact, just as the bee diminished on Tutira with the disappearance of white clover, so the numbers of the goldfinch declined with the vanishing thistle.

A small number of minahs (Acridotheris tristis) had been liberated in '77 by the Hawke's Bay Acclimatisation Society. In '82 these birds were still regarded as novelties; the habits of mated pairs were still carefully noted; I well remember the interest attached to a pair breeding in '84 beneath the eaves of the late Mr W. Birch's house near Hastings. As the goldfinch on Tutira will always be associated in my mind with early efforts at wool-classing, so is the minah associated with another great event in station life—the docking and ear-marking of lambs.

Cuningham and I had by '84 built a cottage, and provided ourselves with a married couple to look after it and us—“to make themselves generally useful,” as the phrase goes. A garden had been dug and fruit-trees planted; our semi-wild game-fowls had been brought over from the site of the original homestead. Instead of stravaiging hundreds of yards away, and flying with frantic eagerness from the hillsides when the milk-dish was scraped of its dough at the whare door, they lived well-regulated prosaic lives within a run of wire-netting visible from the dining-room. One day in November—docking was later in those times—we were breakfasting about nine after a long morning's work, when Cuningham, who sat opposite the window, drew my attention to a solitary bird crouched up against the netting of the hen-yard, as if endeavouring to chum up with the fowls. It was a minah, a solitary wanderer, attempting, as lost animals do, to associate with any other living creatures, however remotely connected. Next morning it was gone.

A year later, when we were again docking our lambs, a—or, as I have always believed, the—minah reappeared. As before, when noticed, it was crouched on the ground close to the wire-netting of the hen-run, exactly on the spot where Cuningham had seen it twelve months previously. Its whole appearance was that of a creature page 331 desiring association with some living thing, however distant in degree. Its forlorn air and close proximity to the wire suggested the idea of a wish to plunge itself amongst other fowl, even though only game-fowl, to bathe itself in their society, to wash away the feeling of appalling loneliness. The homestead, it must be remembered, in those days was a bare square of wood in a bare paddock. There was no shelter, there were no trees, there were no alien birds.

For the third time minahs appeared in '86, two pair attempting that year to build about the house itself; in their thorough investigation of the possibilities of the chimney, more than once the birds fluttered into the rooms beneath; whole mornings were spent on the shingle roof, inspecting the eaves and carrying little sticks into impossible places. Once or twice the incomplete nests were flooded out from the gutters; at last, after many weeks, the birds left without having succeeded in their efforts to found a family.

During the two following years there was no further attempt to colonise Tutira. In '89 I was at home; upon my return to New Zealand I found that the construction of the Napier-Tutira-Wairoa road had begun. On the route of the surveyed line navvies were camped under canvas in several different parties, each of which was attended by its special flock of minahs. The birds lived on the leavings of the meals thrown out; they were there for what they could get; for the very same reasons as induced the Jews to follow the Normans into England, the minahs followed the navvies into Tutira. A pair once more reached the Tutira homestead. Again, however, they were balked for want of building sites; again the only suitable-looking spot—the chimney—was explored, the birds as before, during the progress of research, fluttering into the rooms beneath. By this date, however, our plantation of Pinus insignis had reached a height of eighteen or twenty feet; lashed together, several of them were stout enough to support a box. A box accordingly was fastened into the pine clump, not the one selected by me, but another quite unsuitable in shape, and which exposed the sitting bird to strong light. So keen, however, were the minahs to build, if not actually on the house then close to it, that even this poor substitute was eagerly utilised. It was evident that if they could not breed in immediate proximity to man they would breed nowhere else.

Then began a process of emancipation—the minah became less dependent year by year; he outgrew the tie binding him to mankind. At first nests were built in rocky road-cuttings and beneath the wood-work of culverts and bridges, where, at any rate, there was the solace of man's countenance and support if but for a passing glimpse. Later again, even this slender tie was dropped; the minah became a wild bird, building far from any homestead in the cracks and fissures of dead trees standing in bush reserves. Nowadays, upon the approach of autumn, minahs largely use the roads, closing in on homesteads for scraps of fowl-feed and leavings of the gallows and kennels. The species has also of late developed a vulture-like habit of congregating near any sheep dead on the hills; in the vicinity of the carcase, awaiting the process of skinning, the expectant birds gather for their ghoulish meal.

“Australian magpies” (Gymnorhina leuconota) were liberated in Hawke's Bay during the 'seventies. A brace appeared at Tutira in '85; they had moved inland from Tangoio, where prior to '82 a small colony had established itself. The migrant pair were accidentally destroyed. The Tangoio magpies three seasons later were purposely shot; their attacks on the sheep-dogs had become so intolerable during the nesting season that the wretched collies dared not follow their owners, who in their turn were unable to muster the run without canine assistance. Since that date, from time to time solitary birds moving north have been noted on the station.

The evidence of early settlers is unanimous that the acclimatisation by the Hawke's Bay Provincial Council of the yellow-hammer (Emberiza citronella) was an immediate success. The breed was perfectly suited by the multiplication of insect life and the increase of alien fodder-plants and weeds everywhere taking place; like the goldfinch, it flourished from the date of liberation. In '87 several pair were noted on the run, one at least of them rearing a brood. The history of the breed is unusual in this, that its numbers on the station nowadays are as great as at any earlier period. The yellow-hammer has not, as usually happens, appeared, rapidly increased to a maximum and then with almost equal celerity suffered diminishment.

The greenfinch (Ligurinus chloris), also imported by the Hawke's Bay Provincial Council, is reported to have succeeded at once. I have, however, no recollection of any specimens on Tutira prior to '90. From the fact, however, that I got half a dozen nests during that year, it is page 333 likely that earlier pairs had been overlooked; it is improbable that so many nests would have been discovered during the first year of the appearance of a new breed.

The Australian quail (Synœcus australis) was a private importation of very early date, birds being liberated on Rissington in the 'sixties by Colonel, afterwards Sir George, Whitmore. It did not, however, reach Tutira for more than thirty years. So tardy a spread can be probably ascribed to the uninviting nature of the intervening country, which, until improvements began, was one vast sheet of bracken. Over this inhospitable wilderness, moreover, huge fires raged from time to time, providing the harriers—who well understood the significance of the event—with a burnt offering of lizards and small birds.

Another game-bird, the Californian quail (Callipepla californica), was imported by the Hawke's Bay Provincial Council, and again at a later date by the Hawke's Bay Acclimatisation Society. Californian quail reached Tutira in the middle 'nineties, and although there was at first an increase in their numbers, it was a limited increase and soon ceased. Their advent as game-birds had come, in fact, too late to admit of any great success. The competition of innumerable goldfinches, yellow-hammers, larks, sparrows, and native species, several of which had also increased with the enlarged area of open country consequent on the destruction of bracken, had already affected the insect food-supply; the Californian quail is now disappearing from the run.

Hares were brought to Hawke's Bay from the South Island. In '82 they were fairly plentiful on the river-bed country in the neighbourhood of Hastings. Eleven years, however, elapsed before the thirty-five miles betwixt that district and Tutira were traversed. Possibly the tendency of scared hares to run in circles has prevented a rapid spread; on the other hand, this trait had been in some degree neutralised by another—the remarkable use by hares of roads and road-cuttings. On the station, shepherds riding at dawn would sometimes strike a hare on one of the narrow cuttings that preceded the completion of the road, and for amusement course it with their collies for hundreds of yards ere the animal would dash off to right or left. The consequence has been that the spread of the hare has been in a peculiar degree governed by chance.

A third factor in the naturalisation of the breed has been the ceaseless persecution of its vanguard by the native harrier hawk. Too page 334 stupid to take cover, they could be seen hirpling about the run pursued by their relentless enemies.¹

Allusion has already been made to the disgust felt at the freeing, firstly, of rabbits, and secondly, of weasels, in the Wairarapa. It was an outrage that any individual or local body should have been allowed to attempt to correct a blunder by a crime. The feeling in Hawke's Bay was evinced in the resolution—as I recollect it, for the minutes of the Society are missing—proposed and passed with ferocious unanimity, that a guinea a head—and guineas were not then as now to be gathered from every manuka bush—should be given “for every head of vermin dead or alive.” No paper resolutions, however, can stay a plague once introduced; harm of this sort done cannot be undone.

Weasels, stoats, and ferrets were bred and liberated at Carterton, the first-named thriving on a great scale and quickly overrunning the countryside. “At least before 1901” my then neighbour, John Moore of Rakamoana, noticed weasels on his property. By 1901 they had reached Tangoio, by 1902 a specimen had been seen on Tutira.

I was then one of the three members who represented the Mohaka Riding of the Wairoa County Council. The township of Wairoa, where, once a month, the Council met, lay thirty miles northward from Tutira; a brother then possessed a farm near Gisborne, seventy miles from Wairoa; there, during the early and middle 'nineties, I was a frequent guest; in search for bush-land for my younger brothers, I had occasion to visit districts thirty and forty miles inland and sixty and eighty miles north of Gisborne. Between Tutira and Wairoa, therefore, and between Wairoa and Gisborne, I may say I had an intimate knowledge of roads made and in the making; northwards of Gisborne I knew something of them personally and more through observers acting on my behalf. During ten or twelve seasons, in fact, I was cognisant of the progress of aliens—birds and animals—over a distance not far short of 150 miles north of the station. Excellent chances were thus afforded of following the progress of the weasel movement.

The earliest weasel was seen on Tutira in 1902. Between that date and 1904 they had overrun the country between Tutira and the southern edge of the Poverty Bay Flat. Everywhere I heard of them. On every road and new-cut bridle-track during these two seasons I met or overtook weasels hurrying northwards, travelling as if life and death were in the matter. Three or four times also I came on weasels dead on the tracks. These weasels, alive or dead, were or had been travelling singly. The only party I heard of was reported by Mr J. B. Kells, then managing Tangoio. In firing a small dried-up marsh he dislodged a large number; according to his statement, they “poured out” of the herbage. For a short period weasels overran like fire the east coast between Tutira and Poverty Bay, and then like fire died out. I traced them by personal observation to the very edge of the Poverty Bay Flats, then, like the Great Twin Brethren, “away they passed and no man saw them more.” Nowadays on Tutira I do not hear from shepherds or fencers of the weasel once in six years. I have not seen one for twenty years. There is something ridiculous in the fact that the weasel should have arrived on the station before the rabbit, and that later, when rabbits had become numerous, weasels should have practically passed out of the district—that the cure, in fact, should have preceded the disease.²

Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were imported from Otago by the Hawke's Bay Acclimatisation Society, though two years later additional birds were brought from Auckland. According to the late Mr J. N. Williams, the local success of this introduction was never in doubt. It was nevertheless not until ten years later that starlings were reported in the minutes of the local Society to be spreading rapidly.

Starlings were liberated in Auckland in '67. Next year the Acclimatisation Society of that district reports that the starling has “perhaps multiplied more rapidly than any other species introduced.” The minutes of the Society give the further information that starlings—doubtless lost individual birds, “their plumage worn and shabby”—had been noticed “twenty miles from the point of liberation within a few days.” At a meeting in the following year the wide spread of the starling was again remarked. In spite, however, of the Auckland Acclimatisation Society's belief in the rapid increase of the species, its forward movement cannot compare in celerity with that of other migrants liberated about similar dates. Starlings, for instance, were not in Poverty Bay in '96; when black crickets during late autumn of that year ravaged my brother's farm, no starlings appeared to combat the plague.¹

At first their colonisation of the run was confined to visitations during autumn and winter—upon the approach of spring the flocks returning to breeding-areas more or less protected and countenanced by man, to cliffs such as those of Roy's Hill, to escarpments such as the Bluff in Napier. Later they began to breed on Tutira not far from the shed and house, choosing as nesting-sites pollarded willows and the dense decumbent thatch of cabbage-trees. Lastly, quite away from mankind, they established themselves amongst the dead timber of station forest reserves.

Rabbits were purposely freed near Carterton in the Wairarapa; they are known also to have been furtively brought into Hawke's Bay at a very early date, and there also liberated in an attempt to ruin the squatters; they were on the Apley Run, for instance, as early as the 'sixties. After fifty years Mr Bernard Chambers of Te Mata still retains an indignant recollection of those days.¹

That was the main cause; there was another in the contraction of feeding - grounds, already fully explained, which took place on every half-developed sheep station. Rabbits, like sheep, were forced on to the tops, and thus in the open exposed to the hawks.

The earliest specimen killed on Tutira was secured by the late Sir Norman Campbell, Bart.,¹ then rabbiter for the Mohaka district. It was taken near the centre of the run, within a few yards of the road. Signs also were noticeable in different parts of the run, but it was a couple of years still before other rabbits were actually taken.²

Not, in fact, until the beginning of the new century did the long-threatened invasion begin. Then in a few weeks rabbits were found to have established themselves on many parts of the run. A percentage of these colonies and congregations were alongside the main road, but the chief gate of entrance was by way of the “Wild Horse” country. There, where the red-deer had struck Tutira in the late 'sixties, the rabbit vanguard was thickest; it had, I believe, followed approximately the route selected years earlier by the wandering stag.

Rooks (Corvus frugilegeus), which were imported by the Auckland Acclimatisation Society, did not, according to the minutes of the Society, immediately prosper; it was thought that the young birds were languid and weak, owing to the heat of their new surroundings. Be that as it may, the species seems soon to have shaken off this early malady; in Hawke's Bay, at any rate, the few pair liberated near Hastings have after many years increased to a considerable rookery.

Young pigeon on artificial nest, brought up on porridge, and wearing bib.

“Wild” turkeys have on several occasions straggled on to the run. “Wild” geese, probably from the lagoons about Longlands, have twice visited the lake for a few hours. Carrier pigeons have at long intervals—the earliest in '83—rested on the roof of one or other of the station buildings. One, in 1912, took up his permanent abode until I had him caught, taken to Napier, and there liberated. I was then engaged in the domestication of native pigeons (Carpophaga Novœ Zealandiœ), and feared the stranger might some day or another lure them away.¹