FLIGHTLESS BIRDS AND THEIR FATE. 73 



wings to escape its enemies, and get from one 

 feeding-ground to another. In an evil hour, 

 misfortune in the guise of blessing overshadowed 

 the kakapo, and removed these two stimuli to 

 healthy exercise, with the result that indolent 

 habits formed themselves, and slowly stole away 

 Nature's wondrous gift of flight. At the time 

 the kakapo settled in the island, there were no 

 flesh-eating mammals, the bird's natural enemies, 

 whom they can only successfully resist by taking 

 to themselves wings. But for the mammals we 

 should have many more birds in the same plight 

 as those discussed in this chapter. Food is 

 generally procurable from the ground even by 

 birds which feed in trees. To avoid prowl- 

 ing beasts they ascend the trees and pluck their 

 food from the branches — nuts, fruit or whatnot 

 — as the case may be. In the absence of such 

 terrors they can obtain it in plenty when it falls. 

 This has been the undoing of the kakapo. The 

 hole in the ground or the cleft in the rock now 

 serves this parrot for the hole in the tree. He 

 can ascend these if he will, but with labour, for 

 he must climb them. It is probable that some 

 enemy, some danger, has threatened him since he 

 became thus helpless, for now he has turned 

 night into day, and feeds during the hours 

 in which he once slept. In this way he has 

 managed to hold his own. Recently, since the 

 advent of Europeans into his domain, things 

 have gone hard indeed, for new enemies, in the 

 shape of pigs, dogs, and so on, have been im- 

 ported, and from them there is no escape. They 

 devour the eggs and young. His doom is sealed. 



