THE STORY OF THE KEA 263 



of the habit, so far as South New Zealand is 

 concerned, may be put down as somewhere 

 about the middle of the " sixties." The kea 

 was practically unknown and unheard of until 

 some years after the mountain runs were not 

 only taken up, but until the more venturesome 

 owners took to summering their wethers above 

 the snow-line. This would be about the begin- 

 ning of the '"sixties," but it was not until some 

 years after that period that mysteriously-mangled 

 sheep were noticed when the muster took place. 

 What caused these wounds was naturally the 

 subject of much discussion, and all sorts of 

 speculations were brought forward to account 

 for them. 



1 When I went out in '67 the question was 

 still undecided, though the kea was by that 

 time under strong suspicion ; and in '68 or '69 

 the matter was finally settled by a shepherd on 



run close to ours catching a kea flagrante 

 delicto. He brought the bird home with him, 

 and kept it in a cage for a long time, where it 

 became very tame and seemed to live very 

 happily, eating bread and mutton with equal 

 relish. 



' When one considers that the kea, until it 

 adopted mutton as an article of diet, must have 

 always suffered, more or less, from hunger, and 



