Mabeinee. — On the Natural History of tlie Kca. 279 



Carcase-eating. 



At the St. Louis Exhibition, according to Mr. Guthrie, of 

 Burke's Pass, the New Zealand Tourist Department repre- 

 sented the kea as follows : " The kea, a species of parrot that 

 fastens itself to the back of the sheep, picks out the fat surround- 

 ing the kidneys, leaving the animal to die a lingering death." 

 From the accounts that I have received, this description is 

 very erroneous, for the kea does not only eat the kidney-fat, 

 but in many instances the whole carcase is devoured. People 

 who kill the birds by poisoning state that often the difficulty 

 is to find a carcase with enough flesh on to poison. Mr. Guthrie 

 says, " My experience is that the kea prefers putrid meat to 

 fresh. In shooting them, before dying they generally disgorge, 

 and in the hundreds I have seen, over 90 per cent, disgorged 

 putrid meat." 



Mr. Morgan writes as follows : " Some writers say that 

 this bird won't eat dead sheep, but they will, and seem to enjoy 

 them. They will get on a dead sheep and clean every bit of 

 flesh off the bones." 



Mr. Ford, of Pembroke, Lake Wanaka, says, " I was en- 

 gaged for some time in destroying the keas by arsenic and 

 strychnine mixed. I would go out on the hill in the afternoon 

 and wait about until the sun got weak, as then the keas would 

 gather and make in the direction to where they had mutton. 

 I would then follow them up and always find one or more dead 

 sheep killed by them. I would poison the carcases thoroughly, 

 but the trouble was to find a carcase with sufficient flesh to 

 poison, as they devour the sheep completely, leaving nothing 

 but wool and bones. Cases when I have found sheep partly 

 eaten, on coming to them next day I would pick up as many 

 as twenty-eight dead keas near the carcase." 



So sure are the men that the keas eat the dead sheep that 

 for the purpose of killing the birds they often camp near a 

 carcase. Mr. E. Cameron, Pembroke, Lake Wanaka, says, 

 " The way we used to do if we did not find a dead sheep on the 

 ground was to kill one and camp near it at night. Often as 

 many as fifty keas would come and eat it, and they are that tame 

 that every one could be shot." From this and other evidence 

 which I have received there seems little doubt that the birds 

 will eat almost the whole of the carcase, and they certainly 

 do not confine themselves to the kidney-fat. 



This naturally leads up to the cjuestion as to whether the 

 kea's beak, filthy from a recent gorge of decaying meat, does 

 not sometimes cause blood-poisoning in the next live sheep 

 it attacks, and so a very small scar might be sufficient to cause 

 death. Mr. Guthrie, writi)ig on this question, says, " I visited 



