62 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



roots, berries, grubs, etc., it soon after the intro- 

 duction of sheep into its haunts in the New Zealand 

 Alps became a most cruel and destructive carnivore, 

 with a ghoulish appetite for live mutton, attacking 

 the sheep at the loins and eating deeply into their 

 flesh. It was at first credited with the desire of 

 devouring the kidneys or the fat surrounding 

 them, but this view appears to be a mistake, the 

 locality of attack being merely the part where the 

 unhappy sheep had no chance of dislodging its 

 tormentor. Of course so extraordinary a habit as 

 this fell under the ban of museum scepticism, but 

 it has been proved up to the hilt. Rewards are 

 paid for the killing of these birds, and, unlike all 

 other New Zealand birds except the Weka Rail 

 (which is destructive to eggs and chickens), it may 

 be sent out of the country. It is a curious thing, 

 however, that specimens sent to the London Zoo 

 soon give up the habit of eating meat and feed on 

 the ordinary seed and other vegetable food given 

 to Parrots ; one lived there some years chiefly on 

 carrots, thus reverting to its natural diet of roots. 



This would seem to indicate that hunger was 

 the first incentive to the change of diet ; the in- 

 satiable inquisitiveness and destructiveness which are 

 very characteristic of these Parrots would be quite 

 sufficient incentive for them to attack dead sheep 

 and offal, which they did before transferring their 

 attentions, in a natural sequence, to the living 

 animals. They have been known to attack a horse, 

 and the corpse of a man killed by a fall in the 



