74



J. Cassidy—A Chat about the Kea



The female Kea is less beautifully attired than the male, her plumage

being duller. She is not so robustly built as her lord and her beak is

not so stout and powerful.


Professor Haslam, of Christchurch, tells that he once saw in an

Otago Homestead a stuffed Kea that was almost an albino. Some

kindly person procured a specimen for Sir W. Buffer, the famous

ornithologist whose book on birds is stiff a standard work. The specimen

was procured from the interior of Otago and was 4 4 bright canary

yellow with a few red feathers interspersed throughout the plumage ;

vivid red on the rump and upper tail coverts as well as under the

wings. Such a gorgeous bird has never been seen in the district before ”.


Food of the Kea


The natural food of the Kea is that of the berries of various Alpine

shrubs and trees, roots of herbaceous plants, grubs, such as are found

in dead trees, honey from the flax-seed. (Cherry trees, when the fruit

is ripe, should it be so fortunate as to find them ; lettuce and dandelions,

and Maori onions are much liked by some of the tame Keas kept by

bird-fanciers.)


Nesting


The Kea might have possessed an almost prophetic foresight that

in the years to come would show it surrounded by countless enemies,

so inaccessible, almost impregnable, are the places selected for its

nesting. Surely no fortress was ever chosen by man stranger and safer

from molestation than the Kea nesting-grounds ! Precipitous, un¬

approachable, and defying intrusion by human hands are their breeding-

places.


Mr. Marriner, aptly quoting Mr. T. IP. Potts, sets down this descrip¬

tion : 44 It, the Kea, breeds in the deep crevices and fissures which


cleave and seam the sheer faces of almost inaccessible cliffs that in

places bound, as with massive ramparts, the higher mountain spurs.

Sometimes, but rarely, the agile musterer, clambering amongst these

rocky fastnesses, has found the entrance to the run used by the breeding

pair and has peered with curious glances, tracing the wmrn track tiff

its course has been lost in the dimness of the obscure recesses beyond

the climber’s reach. In these retreats the home, or nesting-place,



