Benham. — On the Flesh-eating Propensity of the Ken. 87 



of winter : when I went to shift them on the 1st September [I 

 found that] the keas had killed two hundred of them : a good 

 many were devoured, and some not touched but with the usual 

 wound above the kidneys. 



" Rose Bros, had a run on the. Matatapu, a continuation of 

 the same range I was on. They mustered their sheep (about 

 three thousand) in the beginning of winter, left them in a large 

 mountain paddock at night, and next morning found thirtv-five 

 killed. 



" They [the keas] do most of the damage at night. On an- 

 other occasion, on my own run, a snowslide carried a sheep with 

 it. I happened to be on the hill about the time it happened, 

 and saw the sheep still alive but covered with snow except its 

 nose and one hind leg : the uncovered leg was eaten to the bone, 

 not a scrap [of flesh] left on it, and half a dozen keas fighting 

 over it." 



3. Mr. John Campbell. 



" Cromwell, 13th August, 1906. 



" I have much pleasure in telling you what I know of this 

 wonderful bird. I first saw the kea in the Wanaka Lake dis- 

 trict in '68 I was shepherding at this time on what 



was then called *■ Campbell Station ' (Wanaka West), and often 

 killed numbers of keas when out on the mountains towards 



nightfall As regards their attacks on sheep, I think 



I was the first to see the kea on a sheep's back. The shearers 

 often drew our attention to a scar on the sheep's back opposite 

 the kidneys, and being on the same place on each sheep, some 

 thought it was a disease (for some were found dead wounded in 

 the same way). The kea was not at all suspected until some 

 time afterwards. 



" I was coming down the Matatapu (boundary between 

 Wanaka and Wanaka West Stations)* when I saw a mob of 

 sheep rushing about as if a dog was disturbing them. When I 

 got nearer I saw a flock of birds hovering over the sheep. These 

 were keas. I stopped and watched for a few minutes, and pre- 

 sently I saw a sheep get singled out from the others and make 

 towards some rocks with a kea planted on its back. By running 

 under rocks and rubbing against them the sheep got the bird 

 off its back, but the same one or a fresh one was soon on again. 

 This went on for some time till the sheep was exhausted. I 



* In a second letter he writes, " It was late in the year '70 when myself 

 and mate, David Kinnard, were coming home from Glencoe to Glendhu 

 on Wanaka Station. We saw sheep on the hill-top disturbed as by dogs. 

 I went to the top, but Dave would not come up." 



