Page:The Kea, a New Zealand problem (1909).pdf/112

108 by the Kea. A hole had been made in the sheep’s loin,—the kidneys were protruding, and some of the fat had been eaten.”

Other correspondents write in a similar strain, stating that the kidneys were usually untouched and the fat eaten.

If the kidneys were the special delicacy, as “Darwinism” states, then the Keas, I am certain, would have devoured them as soon as they were exposed.

Whatever may have been the attraction in the early days, the Kea does not now kill sheep for the sake of the kidneys.

People have been led to suppose that the Kea always went for the kidney, because it always attacked the sheep just over these organs; but, after having gone through the accounts of about fifty eye-witnesses, I cannot find any trustworthy evidence in support of the kidney theory.

Without crediting the Kea with any special powers of reasoning, there are several better reasons that easily explain its procedure; and these show that the bird simply attacks in the easiest, most natural and most effective way. It is, I think, too much to assume that the Kea has inherited from its parents the knowledge as to where the sheep’s kidneys are situated; and yet from the first the rump has been the favourite part of attack. The shoulders are injured sometimes, but this is only in the case of sheep buried in the snow. Even if we assume that the Kea has intelligence enough to discover the position of the kidneys, we are still left with a difficulty. We are asked to believe that, within the last fifty years, or even a much shorter period, the acquired character of being able to locate the sheep’s kidneys has become an inherited character and is passed on to the offspring. In believing this we accept as a basis for agrument that which is a matter for keen controversy among our leading biologists, and is by no means decided. No good case can be built on such insecure foundation. We must look in some other direction for an explanation of the Kea’s habit.

If we look at the facts we shall see that the Kea