Eenham. — On, the Flesh-eating Proptnsitjj of the Kca. 73 



at work on the back of a sheep. I will quote from his letter to 

 me : — 



" I do not know whether I was the first to see the kea attack 

 sheep, but I was the first to report it to Mr. Henry Campbell 

 of Wanaka Station 



" In 1868 my orders were to go all over the run after the 

 snowfall and see that the sheep were evenly [distributed] over 

 the ground, that no hill or spur had more sheep on it than it 

 could well carry. While I was at this work, the snow [being] 

 about 2 ft. deep, I went out to the tops : in a small basin under 

 the top, on the west side, facing a rocky country that we called 

 ' skay,' there was a mob of sheep snowed in and unable to get 

 out. There I saw the kea at work. He would come down 

 from the rocks, settle on a sheep's loin, and peck into the sheep, 

 which would run through the mob ; but [the bird] stuck to 

 the sheep all the time till he got a piece out of the sheep, then 

 he would fly to the rocks. 1 watched the bird at this work and 



did not disturb him till I was fully satisfied Then I 



went down to the station and reported to Mr. Campbell. He 

 could not credit me, and all hands on the station [refused to] 

 believe that the birds would do it ; so I was ordered to go to 

 another hill, called the Black Hill, and Mr. Campbell came with 

 me, and some more men, and at the first mob we came to Mr, 

 Campbell and the rest saw [the keas] at work with their own 

 •eyes." 



The announcement, first published in the Dunstan Times, 

 was received with incredulity and ridicule bv Mr. H. Campbell's 

 fellow-sheepowners. But not for long ; soon other sufferers 

 noticed the kea at work, and those who had laughed laughed 

 no more. 



So serious was the trouble that on Mr. H. Campbell's station 

 men were engaged as " kea-shooters," one of whom — Mr. John 

 King, of Pembroke — has been good enough to give me a good 

 deal of information, and to send me the names of several of the 

 gentlemen whose letters are printed below ; and on their re- 

 plies to my questions the present communication is founded. 



There can be no doubt, it seems to me, that sheepowners 

 have suffered very considerable loss from the attacks of keas ; 

 but whether the numbers of sheep killed by them as given by 

 various persons are the correct ones or are exaggerated I have no 

 means of ascertaining. Sir Walter Buller(13) gives instances, 

 so that I need not repeat them. But it will be noticed that Mr. 

 Dougald Bell believes that the kea kills 5 per cent, of the sheep 

 in the region of Lake Hawea, and records the loss of twenty- 

 five during last season. But, seeing that several people attri- 

 bute their heavy financial losses to the kea, it seems improbable 



