THE KIDNEY THEORY. 107 



Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace quotes a similar misstatement 

 in his book entitled " Darwinism ; " for, after describing 

 the methods of the Kea's attack, he says : — " Since then it is 

 stated that the bird actually burrows into the living sheep, 

 eating its way down to the kidney, which forms its special 

 delicacy." 



These incorrect statements were made possible by the loose 

 way in which some of our writers have collected their evidence, 

 and, in some cases, have made use of mere sheep station 

 rumours. 



It was Mr. C. C. Huddlestone who first disputed the 

 statement, and said that the Kea attacked sheep for the kidney 

 fat and the flesh. 



This idea of Mr. Huddlestone's is supported by the evidence 

 sent to me by men who have seen many sheep killed and 

 wounded by the Kea, for they all (with one exception) state 

 that the kidney is not the special attraction, but that the 

 meat and fat are the object of the bird's desire. 



The witness who was the one exception, in another part 

 of his letter, writes as follows : — " I have shot many Keas by 

 dead sheep, and they vomit fat ; " so there seems to be 

 evidence, even in this exception, that the bird ate the fat 

 rather than the kidneys. 



Of course, the Kea's taste may have changed since its 

 first attempt at sheep-killing ; yet many witnesses, ranging 

 back to some of the earliest, do not support the kidney 

 theory. A shepherd, in a letter to me, says:— "I have not 

 examined many sheep that have been killed by Keas, but in 

 the ones that I have investigated I have always found the 

 same result, — the fat eaten and the kidneys left. Of course, 

 the kidneys have been found mauled, but they were not 

 suflficiently torn to give the impression that the Keas had 

 been eating them." 



Another correspondent says : — " I was v/alking quietly 

 along and came to the edge of a slight depression in the 

 ground, and there, right at my feet, a Kea rose from the 

 body of a sheep. I examined the sheep. It was a fat merino 

 wether, — perfectly sound ; but it had been severely injured 



