THE KEA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3214, 14 June 1909, Page 7

THE KEA.

(Contributed.)

A good deal has been written about the Kea, and yet we may say the true habits of the Kea are somewhat shrowded in mystery. The home of the Kea ia among the most rugged and in some cases inaccessible ranges of the Southern Alps, where undisturbed this bird lives a life completely outside the palo of man. The habits of the Kea are really nocturnal, At peep of day during the mustering of the merino sheep, the Kea will be seen circling around the sheep when breaking camp, or in the dusk of the evening flitting round the camp fires. The charges brought by runholders in the back blocks that the Kea destroys many sheep has not been accepted by the naturalist as an estab-' lished fact, for the simple reason that no one has as yet come forward to testify tltat he has seen this bird in the act of killing a sheep, although he may have come .across dead sheep and carcases being eaten by Keas. Wounds have beefs found on a sheep's back which* probably cculd have only been inflicted by the sharp, powerful beak of the Kea. Having spent some years in the Lakes District, where these birds are plentiful, my experience may be of some interest. On many occasions I have shot Keas while they have been tearing at the flesh of a newlyKilled sheep on the ranges, the sheep bearing marks which went to show that the Kea had atacked it. The birds were quite easily shot as being broad daylight they were quite stupid. lam of opinion that the sheep are attacked by the oLI birds. The poor sheep when finding itself severely wounded makes back on the more open ranges, where in many cases it succumbs to its wounds, and being quickly scented by the Keas while passing in the early morning or in the dusk of th evening they bring their comrades to the feast. No one unless they have had the experience of this exceedingly mountainous class of country where the haunts of the Kea are, can imagine the difficulty of actually being an eye witness of Keas attacking sheep. A runholder, who had smeared the carcass of a sheep found dead on the ranges with strychnine, found forty-five dead Keas next morning. At that time tha Lake County Council was giving one shilling for Keas beaks. &aing a bird of purely insectivorous haLits this acquried taste for mutton is naturally exciting the interest of naturalists.