large flat tail. A man named Tom Crib, who had been engaged in whaling and sealing in the neighbourhood of Dusky Bay for more than twenty-five years, said he had not himself seen the beaver, but had several times met with their habitations, and had been surprised by seeing little streams dammed up, and houses like bee-hives erected on one side, having two entrances, one from above and the other below the dam. One of the Camerons, who lived at Kaiwarawara, when the settlers first came to Wellington, stated that he saw one of these large rats and pursued it, but it took to the water, and dived out of sight." Julius von Haast—various—19th century. As quoted in Alfred Brehm, Brehms Tierleben, chapter Monotremes: "Another interesting creatures among the most primitive mammals are the only indigenous New Zealand mammal, waitoteke (sic), an otter-like animal which has been seen several times, once from such a short distance that it was hit with a whip, but then it disappeared in the water with a very brittle sound. Jul. v. Haast saw its tracks in the snow. Yet no-one was able to catch the animal so far. It is thought that this mammal is more primitive than Monotremes and will put some new light upon the ascent of the class which ends with the Man." As quoted in Ferdinand von Hochstetter's New Zealand: "My friend Haast wrote me about vaitoteke (sic) on June 6, 1861: '3500 feet above the sea level I found, on the upper part of Ashburton river (South Island, Canterbury province), in a part of the country which no man has ever visited before me, its tracks. These are similar to those of an otter, only a bit smaller. However, the animal itself was observed by two gentlemen who own a sheep farm near Ashburton 2100 feet above sea level. They described the animal as being dark brown, the size of a big rabbit. When hit with a whip, it made a whistle-like sound and disappeared in the water.'" Later accounts come from a variety of settlers, farmers, trampers, hunters, tourists and scientists throughout the 20th century, for example, Philip Houghton in the vicinity of Martins Bay: "I saw it only for three or four seconds, but this is time enough to get a solid glimpse of something. I saw a furred animal of medium brown colouring – lighter rather