BUSH RATS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 79, 25 October 1939, Page 3

BUSH RATS

KILLERS OF NATIVE BIRDS

Lovers of native birds -will be pleased with the report that traps set for opossums in the forest of ML Eg'mont caught -120 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," states Mr H. Guth-rie-Smith in '"Mutton Birds and Other Birds." "After long experience I am convinced that at Tutira (Mr GuthrieSmith's estate in Hawke's Bay) the two species of rat do more damage to my local avifauna than shooting, fire, dogs, cats, weasels and birds of prey combined." The well-known naturalist's remarks show how weil qualified the bush rat is for preying on the eggs or ncstl.ings of birds. It is as agile and nimble as a monkey among the branches of trees. "The bush rat's

domicile in outward I'oirn is not unlike the untidy stnicln'c of a house sparrow; and when his quarters lie in running" districts, tiie nests are conspicuous, Ngh on tall hedges of English hawthorn and African boxthorn. In the bush, they may be found in masses of lawyer, chimps o! black vine, thickets of supplejack and dense shrubberies of tutu. I have seen them aiso built just like an English Wien's nest into the fibry rootlets of an overblown tree, or fastened into the clinging rata that often ivies the face of a limestone cliff, Most rarely they are to be found in clefts of trees or as burrows in steep, dry banks."

The common grey rat is also -i quick clever climber of trees. At dusk, by the swan pond of the Wellington Botanical Gardens, a visitor saw a grey rat run swiftly up the midrib of tree-fern hond and leap to another frond. What chance would a nesting bird have against such

an enemy? Some, sportsmen apparently, however, do not realise the 'tfreaf. harm rais do because they det'l.'ire Avar on harrier hawks, one of ' ! 7 e ni"i!i cr.vinios of the rat.