Marriner. — On the Natural History of the Kea. 285 



curred, I should say, three or four times before the bottom of 

 the gully was reached. When I went to investigate I found the 

 sheep not quite dead, but bleating with evident pain, it would 

 appear on account of a hole in its back, close up to the shoulder." 



Mr. A. Wilson, of Pembroke, Lake Wanaka, writes, " I 

 have seen them attack a sheep at midday, when it was 

 quietly feeding, and it would rush away as fast as it could go, 

 until it either tripped itself or fell down exhausted, when the 

 keas that followed it would start picking the wool off the loins. 

 I have followed sheep under these circumstances and found 

 the keai picking them until I drove them away and set the 

 sheep on to its feet again. I have also found sheep actually 

 able to walk about a little, even though they had portions of 

 their intestines pulled out through the hole in the loins and 

 hanging down their sides These, of course, we killed." 



Mr. H. Heckler, of Lumsden, Southland, writes, " I was 

 keeping boundary up the Gladstone Gorge, after snow muster, 

 and was gathering stragglers off the high comitry, when I ran 

 across about twenty keas. Two of them were on a sheep's back. 

 The balance were flying round him (a stray wether) making a 

 terrible noise. The sheep was going at full speed down the 

 spur. I watched where he ran to and followed him down for 

 about three miles. When I got down the sheep was dead, 

 with two holes (one on each side of the backbone) in him, and 

 most of the mob of keas were picking out the kidney-fat. I 

 crawled to the rock where the poor sheep was lying, and the 

 keas were so busy at work that I killed three with my stick." 



Mr. Andrew Watherston, Eee's Valley Station, Glenorchy, 

 writes of his experience in 1904 as follows : " I was looking 

 ■out a mob of wethers, and found that the keas had been killing 

 them, and there were eight dead. As it came on a dense fog 

 I had to return to my hut. Early on the following morning 

 I went out to the wethers again. Arriving where the sheep 

 were camped, some time before sunrise, I could hear the keas 

 calling, and following up the sound I got to where there were 

 about forty of them. They had about tliree or four hundred 

 wethers rounded up. The sheep were huddled close together, 

 and the keas were flying over them and alighting on their backs. 

 When the keas started to pick the back of the sheep it would 

 start to run round and round the mob ; the kea would rise, 

 but as soon as the sheep stopped the bird was on its back 

 again. This continued for a little time ; the sheep, apparently 

 getting sulky, lay down with its neck stretched out and its 

 lower jaw resting flat on the ground, when it showed no further 

 resistance, but allowed the kea to pick away at its back. I 

 never saw a sheep, after it once sulked, to show any further 



