62 THE IXFLDENCE OF INANIMATE SUIiROUNDINGS. 



brooks. A very interesting example is offered by the Kia — 

 Nestor inirabilis — oi New Zealand; it is allied to the parrots, 

 and formerly fed on the j aices of plants and flowers, but lately 

 it has become accustomed to sipping the blood of newly 

 slaughtered sheep ; and it is asserted that this bird, originally so 

 haroiless has actually become a serious foe to the flocks of New 

 Zealand by its constantly increasing love for the blood of sheep, 

 for it even pecks and sips the most minute wounds on a living 

 sheep, and so sets up an irritation which not unfrequently leads 

 to the death of the animal. Dr. Philippi, the best known 



Fig. IC— AVs^.r mirabilis, a New Zealand parrot. 



zoologist of the University of Santiago in Chili, has recently com- 

 municated a still more remarkable case. Two horses on the 

 estate of a certain Mr. Nicholas Paulsen, according to him, had 

 for weeks indulged in the bad habit of eating every day some 

 of the young pigeons and chickens in the poultry-yard. 



In the Zoological Institute of Wiirzburg, I have kept for six 

 years a pair of fully grown and peifeotly tame prairie dogs. The 

 male, to which I gave the old-fashioned German name of Hans, 

 differs entirely in his tastes from the female, Gretel. She, in every 

 respect an ornament to her sex, always gentle, unassuming, and 

 affectionate, but very timid too, prefers a vegetable diet — fresh 



