Benham. — On the Flesh-eatiny Propensity of the Kea. 83 



the burning occurred, the sheep were introduced into the dis- 

 trict, a new source of food was at once open to it. And the 

 suggestion that the kea, on the disappearance, temporary or per- 

 manent, of its normal food, would proceed to investigate a fallen 

 sheep, or one snowbound — weakened perhaps from cold or ab- 

 sence of food — seems quite in accordance with the bird's general 

 habit of inquiry and its catholicity of diet. 



The change of diet is not so abrupt as at first appears, since 

 part of the bird's food consists of flesh in the form of insects, 

 and possibly there is not a great amount of difference in taste 

 between a good, fat, juicy weta or beetle grub and a piece of raw 

 sheep, while the ease with which a whole flock of birds can ob- 

 tain a full meal must be a distinct improvement upon the more 

 wearisome task of digging in the earth and probing rotten logs 

 for a small mouthful as a reward. 



The observations of birds kept in captivity are few, and 

 not entirely in agreement. Dr. DeLautour (as quoted by Buller 

 from the Field) noted that his bird — which was the first living 

 specimen to be exhibited in the Zoological Gardens in London 

 — ate only the flesh and would not touch the fat, preferred 

 mutton to beef, and was not averse to pork. Reischek states 

 that a kea he had in captivity preferred meat to vegetables. 



I had a caged kea under observation for a week, through 

 the kindness of Mr. Harry Buckland of Waikouaiti. We fed it 

 normally on various vegetables, such as carrots and parsnips, 

 and on fruits, such as apples and bananas, all of which it seemed 

 to like. We tried it with mutton flesh and fat, and so long 

 as we watched it the bird neglected the meat, though it ate 

 it during the night. On two occasions we presented it with a 

 saucer containing cut-up vegetables, mutton— lean, fat, and 

 kidney. It went to work at once on the vegetables. On one 

 occasion it did not eat the mutton so long as daylight lasted, 

 but during the evening we found that it had devoured the flesh, 

 later on the fat, and next morning the pieces of kidney had 

 disappeared. On the second occasion — on which it had not 

 been fed during the earlier part of the day — it again attacked 

 the vegetables first, later the flesh, then the fat, and lastly, 

 during the night, the kidney. Of course, this bird may not 

 have developed a carnivorous habit before its capture, some 

 three months previously, for, as I have pointed out, only some 

 keas exhibit the taste for mutton. Moreover, it must not be 

 supposed, I think, that even a bird that has once developed 

 the habit eschews vegetable diet thereafter ; it is likely that 

 its diet will be a " mixed " one. 



Nor is the kea alone in evincing a liking for flesh ; its near 

 .ally the kaka {Nestor meridionals), normally a honey and 



