ON THE HABITS OF THE KEA. 297 



either ; and I never knew the bird to be seen feeding on a dead 

 sheep. The sheep always died after the repast, and were then 

 left to the Wekas (Ocydromus australis) and Buzzard Hawks, who 

 would finish the work of destruction. 



About the time at which we found out that the Kea molested 

 the sheep, we read in the papers that the shepherds on the 

 Wanaka Station, some thirty or forty miles in a northerly direc- 

 tion from our position, had also discovered the same fact, and 

 this made the authorities of the Dunedin Museum very desirous 

 to obtain a specimen of this bird. My brother John saved the 

 skin of one and presented it to the Museum, and this was the 

 first specimen seen there. I can suggest no reason for the Kea 

 acquiring this new habit other than that the sheep, in winter- 

 time, which were snowed in on the shady side of the range, would 

 have a coating of snow or frost, and sometimes had long icicles 

 hanging to their wool, so much so that the discoloured snow- 

 tracks of the sheep would be more readily seen by the shepherd 

 than the sheep themselves, and from this disguisement of the 

 sheep they might be more readily enquired into by the Kea, who 

 might mistake the frozen wool for a snow-covered piece of rock ; 

 but on the other hand, the bird did not attempt to pluck the wool 

 from the whole length of the sheep's back, as if in search of 

 buried insects, but confined its operations to the one small area, 

 either behind the shoulders, or over the kidneys. Nor did the 

 bird specially desire kidney-fat, which it seldom reached. It was 

 the position and hold of the bird which determined the point of 

 attack, for probably if the bird had seated itself on the head or rump 

 of the animal it would have been successfully driven away. A 

 sheep would have great difficulty to turn its head or neck suffi- 

 ciently backward to dislodge anything seated on its back imme- 

 diately behind the shoulders. I would say that blood rather 

 than flesh was what the bird desired, for, as said previously, no 

 carcase was ever eaten, though the birds might be flying round 

 in scores. The dead bodies, if touched at all, were eaten by the 

 Weka, the Hawk, and the Rat. I have known the Rat to nibble 

 the tender hoofs from the living new-born lamb; after a time, 

 if the lamb survived, the hoof would grow down as would a 

 person's finger-nail, and so the damage would be rectified. My 

 knowledge of the Kea has no reference to its habits at the 

 present time, for I have for twenty years lived in a district where 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XIX. — AUG. 1895. 2 A 



