300 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



to noose one, and found that it was in its nesting plumage of 

 slate-coloured down, with very yellow beak and legs. There were 

 others in different stages of growth, also eggs. I have since 

 found other nests, and have noticed that after a time the old birds 

 leave the half-grown ones to hatch out the late eggs, all the com- 

 munity doing their share of feeding the young. The same habit 

 I have noticed in the native Parrakeet. The Kea's egg is white, 

 and about the size of a Pigeon's, but rounder, and with a rough 

 shell [cf. Zool. 1883, p. 376] . The young birds do not come out 

 of the nest until fully fledged and able to fly. The young birds 

 are so tame that if a person comes across a flock of them and keeps 

 perfectly still they will walk up to him and pull his clothes. 



" I am unable to give a correct estimate of the number killed 

 in the Mount Cook and Lake Wakatipu districts. The slaughter 

 of them at times has been very great. At Lake Wanaka, in four 

 years, I myself killed over three thousand, and I know of several 

 up-country stations where one to two hundred were killed yearly. 

 To reduce their numbers the County Councils used to give from 

 Is. to 2s. per beak, and the Government then gave the Councils 

 a subsidy of pound for pound. This has now been discontinued, 

 and so gives a chance of increase."* 



As quoted above, Mr. Huddleston speaks of the Kea eating the 

 berries of various alpine shrubs and trees, among others Panax 

 and Pittosporum ; these are only the taller undergrowth of the 

 forest, or at times a few may be found in a warm gully alongside 

 a small creek. They are all tall shrubs, and I have never seen 

 them growing at the elevation frequented by the Kea, but I have 

 no knowledge of the vegetation about Mount Cook. Podocarpus 

 is the generic name of several forest- trees, as the black pine and 

 totara, and these grow in what are termed the mixed bushes of 

 the lowlands. I once found on the mountain side, growing 

 among and covering a large area of large angular fragments of 

 broken rocks, a peculiar prostrate shrub, and, after some search, 

 found the seed or berry of this carpet-like growth. My sister 

 made a coloured sketch of the small branch which I brought 

 home. This I sent to Dr. Black, of Dunedin. He replied that 

 he did not recognise it, and had handed the drawing to the care 

 of the local museum. At that time I had never seen the totara 



* « £j ew Zealand Journal of Science,' September, 1891. 



