ON THE HABITS OF THE KEA. 299 
To obtain this much prized delicacy, such a large hole is pierced 
that the loins are lacerated and torn, so that the bones are often 
exposed, and the sinews “ look like fiddle-strings,” as a shepherd 
expressed it. In the winter months these attacks are most fre- 
quent. Newly-shorn sheep are as a rule unmolested; this may 
arise from the shortness of the wool affording a less secure hold 
than a full fleece, or more probably because there is an ample 
supply of food easily obtainable during summer and early autumn ; 
in fact, sheep are neither disfigured nor destroyed during warm 
weather. Various attempts have been made to lessen the numbers 
of the mountain parrots; advantage has been taken of their con- 
fidence and boldness to kill them with sticks and stones; many 
are snared off the meat-gallows. On some stations hands are sent 
out to shoot them; cries of a wounded one will cause many to 
assemble around it; sometimes a number are destroyed on these 
occasions, but it is found that they grow shy and wary where a 
gun is often employed, as they are soon ’cute enough to know 
when a man carries a gun. 
On one station, the winter before last, two men were engaged 
for the destruction of Keas at a shilling per head; to make the 
best of the nocturnal habits of the birds, these men ranged the 
mountains at night,—a sufficiently hazardous undertaking,— 
lighting fires to attract their game; in the daytime they rested, 
and prepared the skins for sale. After six weeks spent in this 
laborious and dangerous occupation, they had accumulated some- 
thing over one hundred specimens. Although the number seems 
small, the loss amongst the sheep that season was lighter than 
the average for several years before on that part of the run on 
which the men were engaged. In hunting Keas there is great 
uncertainty in meeting with flocks of them, sometimes three or 
even four days may elapse without one being seen. On the 
western side of the island they fly from the Mount Cook range to 
the bluffs by the sea-shore, passing over the intervening wide 
areas of forest at a great height. 
Last winter numbers appeared on the ranges about the Upper 
Rangitata, where hundreds were shot during the winter months 
of June, July, and August ; numbers were killed on Dog Range, 
Ashburton, by hands employed in packing; and if one might 
judge from the number of heads and quantity of feathers lying 
about the camp, the men were rather fond of Kea pie. 
