86 Transactions. 



with their beaks until they obtain an entrance. I am sending 

 you four shoulder-bones, some old, and some fresh ones killed 

 last winter. [One of those is here figured.] 



" There is also another point : Two sheep came in during 

 mustering at Hawea Lake — a ewe and a wether — which had 

 been attacked by keas some time during the season. Each had 

 holes in their backs, and the main gut had been cut through 

 and pulled up through the backs ; the gut had grown to the 

 [skin of the] back and [a new anus had been formed] which caused 

 a black streak down each flank where the droppings fell out. 

 One of these cases happened in- the year 1887 and the other in 

 1899. It Avas in the month of January that they mustered in 

 each case, and brought into the station for shearing when [the 

 above facts were] noticed. 



" I have had thirty-three years' of experience with keas, and 

 so know a little about them. I first came up here in 1873. 

 When the keas first started to attack sheep they used to pull a 

 tuft of wool off the back of the sheep over the kidneys for a 

 while before killing [I presume he means that they merely tasted 

 the flesh and left the sheep], but now it is very different, as 

 nearly every sheep they tackle they kill outright. 



" There is a lot of country in this locality that could be 

 stocked with sheep if it were not for the keas : but it is not safe 

 to put sheep on it, as the birds would kill half of them." 



2. Mr. Ewan Cameron. 



" Pembroke, 28th September, 1905. 



" The first notice of keas killing sheep in Wanaka was in 

 1868 by James McDonald, head shepherd for Mr. Henry Camp- 

 bell, owner of Wanaka Station at that time .... Mr. 

 Campbell wrote a letter to the Dunstan Times describing the 

 destruction that keas were causing among his sheep, with the 

 result that all the people in that part of the country laughed at 

 him. 



" In that year I was shepherding in the Crown Range, and 

 after reading Mr. Campbell's letter I saw at once what w^as killing 

 my sheep. The place of attack is nearly always on the loin, 

 behind the last rib ; they [keas] tear down to the kidney, pull 

 out the entrails, and sometimes leave the sheep without killing 

 it. It is a common thing for sheep to come into the yards with 

 their entrails hanging over the side ; also with new wounds, or 

 old ones healed up. 



" [As an instance of the ferocity of the keas, I may mention 

 that] One season, at the head of the Matukituki, I had four 

 hundred sheep that did not come in at the proper time for shear- 

 ing. I put them in a safe place after snowfall at the beginning 



