290 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
ON THE HABITS OF THE KEA OR MOUNTAIN PARROT 
OF NEW ZEALAND.*« 
Bz T.-H Pours, ELS: 
Ir a stranger accompanied a party of back-country flock- 
masters or shepherds on a visit of inspection to one of our 
museums, on looking over the birds of New Zealand, he might 
feel at a loss to account for the strong interest displayed by the 
mountaineers in the Kea—a parrot that at a transient glance 
pretty closely resembles the noisy Kaka (Nestor meridionalis), yet 
one might venture to predict that it would be the first bird 
inquired for and pointed out, and its destructive habits dwelt 
upon with startling emphasis. 
In the spring-time of 1871, and subsequently, the writer 
published some brief accounts of the Kea, showing the progress 
of development in its then newly acquired carnivorous habit.t 
It is now proposed to give a life-history of the species, and 
the truest way of doing so will be to refer to one’s early 
acquaintance with it during its age of innocence, before it had 
acquired that strange Epicurean taste for dainties that has led to 
the commission of deeds of savage cruelty. We shall thus see 
the bird harmless enough in the dull epoch of Maori conservancy, 
later on, unable to restrain its mischievous propensities, when 
tempted by peaceful flocks of defenceless animals introduced by the 
*‘pakeha” into the wild rugged country of its own peculiar range. 
A wish to render this account as complete as possible must be 
held as excusing the writer for entering into minute details that 
to some may appear tedious, but it must be remembered that the 
subject is one that is no longer of interest only to naturalists ; it 
has grown to be of importance to numbers of mountain sheep- 
* Nestor notabilis, Gould; the Green or Mountain Parrot; Kea of the 
Maoris; and Kaieo or Sheep-killer of the shepherds of the Southern Alps. 
+ See papers read before the Wellington Philosophical Society and the 
Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, in ‘Transactions of the New Zealand 
Institute,’ vol. iii.; ‘Journal fiir Ornithologie,’ Miirz, 1872; Dr. O. Finsch, 
‘Revision der Vogel Neusielands’; Brehm’s ‘ Thierleben—Végel,’ vol. i., 
p. 166; ‘Nature,’ vol. iv., p. 489; ‘The Kea—Progress of Development ’— 
‘Nature,’ vol. v., p. 262; ‘Change of Habits in Animals and Plants’; and 
‘The Zoologist,’ 1871, p. 2855; 1880, p. 57. 
