Oedek PSITTACIFOBMES.] 



[Family NESTOKIDiE. 



NESTOR NOTABILIS 



(KEA PAEEOT.) 



Nestor notabilis (Gould), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. i., p. 166. 



The destructiveness of the Kea to the Hocks of sheep has been fully treated of 

 (2nd. ed., i., pp. 171-4) ; but this nuisance has been much abated by the practical exter- 

 mination in late years of that bird in the sheep country. To show that the evil in past 

 times has not been overstated, the following instances may be quoted on the authority of 

 Mr. Potts, who was a very careful observer : — 



On one station in the Matatapu the owner resolved to begin cross-breeding. With that view twenty 

 Lincoln rams were purchased ; within a month nineteen were killed by parrots. On another run, during the 

 month of April 310 strong young wethers were got in off the back-country. As it was late in the season the 

 owner resolved not to shear them, but to put them on a good low-lying space. In September they were looked 

 at, and they were found lying in dozens with holes in their backs, untouched in every other part ; of the 

 original number, 105 only remained alive. On one outlying portion of a lake-run the birds were so destructive 

 that, although there were 30,000 acres of good grass land, the occupiers decided not to place stock upon 

 it ; the losses had been found so great that it was deemed better to abandon the country. 



Young.— The bird of the first year has duller plumage than the adult male, and there 

 is no metallic glint on the upper surface. Bill blackish brown, yellow towards the base of 

 lower mandible. I examined a young bird in captivity that had been taken out of a nest 

 of five. It was extremely tame and confiding, and I noticed that all its movements were 

 very hawk-like even at this age. 



The photograph on the next page, for which I am indebted to Mr. Malcolm Eoss, 

 represents a pair of inquisitive Keas visiting the yard of an out-station on a tour of inspection. 

 The locality is near the Tasman Glacier, at an elevation of 3,000 feet above sea-level. 



In vol. ix. of the 'Transactions N. T. Institute' I recorded some curious instances 

 of deformity in the bill of Nestor meridionalis. I received from Dunedin a specimen of 

 Nestor notabilis in which the upper mandible presents a very strange malformation, of 

 which I gave a pencil sketch (pi. xiv., fig. 1). 



Owing to the crusade urged against this Parrot for many years its numbers have been 

 perceptibly thinned; but it may always be found in its mountain fastnesses. 



Mr. Eoberts, the head of the Government survey staff at Hokitika, gave me some 

 interesting particulars about the Kea, to which bird, when in the field, he was in the 

 habit of paying special attention. On one occasion in camp, after giving a tame Kea 

 a good breakfast of raw meat, he offered the bird a Wood-robin which he had just knocked 

 over. The Kea deliberately picked the feathers off the head of the dead bird, and sucked 

 out the brains, then tore off all the body-feathers and swallowed it whole. He states that, 

 so far as his experience goes, the Kea is never found to the north of Lake Brunner. He 

 adds that, when he was engaged on the back-country survey, the Keas were so tame at first 

 that more than once they have picked at his boot laces and tugged at his trousers, in 

 their inquisitive way, to see what they were made of. But after once being pelted at with 

 a stone, or treated rudely, they developed extreme caution and generally kept out of the 

 way : a pretty good indication of natural intelligence ! 



About seventeen years ago a beautiful yellow Kea was obtained in the Wanaka country 



