Page:The Kea, a New Zealand problem (1909).pdf/106

102 Kea would soon tumble off, no doubt thoroughly enjoying the novelty.

In this way, by repeated failures, the bird would soon acquire the knack of holding on to a sheep while it was running.

Once on the back of a sheep, the bird would now want some other novelty to amuse itself with, and the woolly fleece would become the next object of investigation.

Soon the flesh and fat would be reached; and, the bird finding these new morsels much to its taste, the art of sheep-killing would soon be acquired.

In this country the heavy snow storms often bury or practically bury many sheep. The struggles of a half-buried beast would soon attract the Kea; and, finding the animal an easy prey, it would soon begin its depredations.

This theory has something in its favour, and no doubt does to some extent account for the bird’s change of character.

This one appears to me to explain to a larger extent the cause of the Kea’s downfall, and as food is a necessity the fall was somewhat natural.

There is a good deal of evidence to show that lack of ordinary food greatly influenced the Kea towards sheep-killing.

As the Kea feeds on berries, grubs, roots, etc., there is no doubt that in winter and spring the excessive snow and heavy frost, so prevalent in Kea country, must often make the procuring of food very difficult. Again, as at this period the eggs are sometimes laid, and perhaps the young ones have to be fed, the lack of ordinary food must at times make the bird desperate.

If this did not in the first instance cause the parrot to kill sheep, it seems now to affect the number killed, for usually a severe winter, accompanied by heavy snow-falls, means a heavy death toll levied on the flocks by Keas.

The pastoral homesteads are scattered in the valleys of the foot-hills. The Kea, wandering about in quest of