120 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



the great lonely grass-lands. Then he became a flesh- 

 eater — and a nuisance. 



A colonist, who owned a very large sheep-farm, told a 

 writer in an English newspaper that he had noticed what 

 in all likelihood started the new taste and new habit in 

 the Kea. " The fresh skins of dead sheep used to be hung 

 up or pegged out with bits of fat still adhering to them. 

 The Keas used to visit these and eat the fat." Ever after 

 they would of course think of this new delicacy as con- 

 nected with sheep's wool ; and, singling out those sheep 

 in a flock which seemed least able to resist, they made a 

 practice of alighting on the poor animal's back, and dig- 

 ging through the wool into the fatty part of its body, 

 till such injury was done that it fell dead. 



Recent writers declare that the damage so inflicted has 

 been greatly exaggerated. But the long, cruel-looking 

 beak of the Kea seems to fit in with such a charge ; and 

 certain it is that, for some time past, the sheep-farmers 

 have vigorously declared war on this bird as an enemy 

 of their flocks. 



The MACAWS are a positively gorgeous family. 

 Nature seems to have chosen the very brightest and 

 richest colours from her magic store when she gave them 

 their dresses. What with their brilliant colouring, their 

 long tails and hooked beaks, their powerful flight, and 

 their harsh loud voices, they are not a family that can 

 be overlooked or disregarded. 



So a word or two must be said about them here, before 

 we pass on to speak about the Parrakeets and the 

 Cockatoos. 



The home of the Macaws is South America. 

 Waterton, the English traveller, who roamed so far and 

 saw so much in the wild forest regions of Demerara, 



