82 Tra7isactions. 



This " vegetable sheep " business is another myth that ought 

 to be eliminated from the history of the habit. 



There can be no doubt that the origin of the habit is trace- 

 able to the kea's natural curiosity : its bump of inquisitiveness 

 is very highly developed, and it will investigate any unusual 

 object — turning it over, pecking at it, and so forth. 



It is very easy to imagine a kea coming across a fallen still- 

 living sheep or one partially covered by snow, proceeding to 

 pluck at the wool, and so coming down to the skin ; then its 

 beak would nibble at the flesh, and the bird would soon find 

 that blood is a good sort of juice to swallow. 



Or, as some have suggested [e.g., Mr. McGregor), the bird in- 

 quired into the fresh skin of a sheep hanging on a fence, or was 

 attracted by a carcase, newly killed, suspended from a gallows : 

 either of these possibilities seems probable, though only one or 

 two of my correspondents refer to this matter, in reply to my 

 query. It does iiot seem certain, however, that a kea will feed 

 on a sheep that has died from " natural causes " on the hills. 

 Mr. T. White and several of my correspondents state that they 

 have never seen them thus feeding. At the same time, one of 

 my correspondents refers to the bird devouring the carcase of 

 deer that have been shot and left on the hills ; and Buller refers 

 to a dead foal being similarly eaten ; and it is also stated that the 

 corpse of a man who fell over a precipice was found torn to pieces 

 by keas. Reischek(5) made the ingenious suggestion that the 

 birds acquired the habit from finding and feeding on maggots 

 which had appeared on the carcase of a sheep which had died on 

 the hills, and " having thus acquired a taste for fat, became em- 

 boldened to attack live sheep." 



But these are all suppositions, and if it be true that the bird 

 does not in fact touch a dead sheep, these suppositions cannot 

 be true. 



Whether the habit is related in any way, originally, to a 

 scarcity of food does not seem at all clear ; the answers are all 

 rather vague, and there is a diversity of opinion on the matter. 

 Thus Mr. King writes, " I do not think that scarceness of the 

 natural food had much to do with the attacks. I have been told 

 that the kea attacks sheep in the West Coast in the low country 

 close to the bush, where food would be plentiful." But that 

 this scarcity has occurred is certain. The burning-off of the 

 alpine scrub and the bush in gullies, as has occurred in many dis- 

 tricts, would deprive the bird of its normal food dming the whole 

 year ; while elsewhere, when the normal food is covered by snow 

 in winter-time, the bird would be compelled to seek a new diet, 

 or migrate, or die. The kea has met the problem by adopting 

 the first of these three alternatives ; and as, at the same time as 



