Untitled

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 August 1938, Page 2

The existence of poisonous reptiles in Trinidad led to the introduction of the mongoose from India, in an effort to eradicate the snakes. The mongoose, finding birds, and domestic poultry better fare and easier to catch, fell under a ban, and a bounty was offered for tails. The wily negroes of the bush captured and bred the mongoose, and many an adult animal, minus his tail, was found to be still serviceable for breeding. The authorities discovered that this breeding was going on, and withdrew the bounty, deciding to leave the solution of the matter to Nature. In telling this story to a luncheon of the Gisborne Rotary Club, Mr Hobart La Mar, drilling superintendent of the New Zealand Petroleum Company, stated that when he left Trinidad, the mongoose was flourishing, the birds were still singing in the trees, and the snakes likewise held their own under conditions which had prevailed for centuries before the white man attempted their extermination. J