Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/220

 In these wild glens the liver-loving kea is very plentiful. This epicure is rather an interesting example of an uncommon fact in natural history. Of course it is pretty generally known that the kea has attained an unenviable notoriety on account of the damage he does to the sheep. He fastens on to some unlucky beast, and with his powerful hooked beak regularly cuts a hole into the poor victim till he reaches the dainty he is in search of—the liver. This luscious morsel having been appropriated, the bleeding, lacerated victim is left to die in agony, while the rapacious kea transfers his attentions to another ill-fated member of the flock. And yet the kea was formerly a fruit-eating bird. He is allied to the macaw family, and how the taste for a carnivorous diet became developed does not seem yet to be known. It is a curious instance of change of natural instinct.

I should say the student of natural history would find a fine field for observation here. Another episode befell us here, and thus: The driver and I were chatting gaily, when an exclamation from him roused my attention to the swift movements of a couple of birds. A sparrowhawk in pursuit of a fine blue rock pigeon. They swept past us on fleet, strong wing. The hawk swooped to strike; but the pigeon eluded him. Again they circled, swept upward, downward, flashed past us like a streak of light, and again the hawk made his deadly dart. Palpitating, trembling, the harried pigeon just managed to