ON THE HABITS OF THE KEA. 295 
Notwithstanding the high character which individuals of the 
species have earned for occasional indulgence in mischief, several 
have been kept as pets—not in wooden cages, by-the-bye, for a 
Kea has been seen by his gratified captor to eat its way out of 
such a place of confinement almost as quickly as it had been 
coaxed to enter into it. Two which had been tamed by a neigh- 
bouring friend were permitted to wander at large ; they regularly 
returned to the house for their meals, and then rambled away 
again, scrambling and clambouring amongst the trees and out- 
buildings ; any kind of food appeared to suit their accommodating 
appetite, but a piece of raw meat was evidently the bonne bouche. 
On the level ground its mode of locomotion is very peculiar ; it 
is not so much a walk as a kind of hopping jump, which imparts 
a very odd appearance to its gait, but when its strong climbing 
foot is observed, this is not to be wondered at, for it will be seen 
how inferior is the strength and power of the two inside toes in 
proportion to that of the outer ones; the short tarsi also being 
unfitted for walking. 
In addition to the superior size of the bird and the colour of 
its plumage, the beak presents a marked contrast to that of the 
Kaka; it is smoother, less curved, and much slighter, with a 
length of two inches from the gape to the point; the upper 
mandible, at the widest part—that is in a line with the nostrils— 
measures five and a half lines in width, with a height of seven 
lines. 
In flight, the two species greatly differ, as they do in voice 
and in their breeding habits. The tree-loving Kaka occasionally 
makes its nesting-place and rears its young amongst rocks in 
wooded gullies. The Kea breeds in the deep crevices and fissures 
which cleave and seam the sheer facings of almost perpendicular 
cliffs that in places bound as with massive ramparts the higher 
mountain spurs. Sometimes, yet rarely, the agile musterer, 
clambering amongst these rocky fastnesses, has found the entrance 
of “the run” used by the breeding pair; has peered with curious 
glance on the worn track till the trace of its course has been lost 
in the dimness of the obscure recesses beyond the climber’s 
reach. In these retreats the home or nesting-place usually remains 
inviolate; its natural defences of intervening rocks defy the efforts 
of human hands, unless aided by the use of heavy iron imple- 
ments that no mountaineer would be likely to employ. The eggs 
