Page:The Kea, a New Zealand problem (1909).pdf/130

126 and butter, a ‘chunk’ of ‘brownie,’ and tea and sugar, for you always take the ‘billy’ with you. Cartridges and a light single-barrelled gun slung over the shoulder finish your equipment. You put out the fire, unloose a dog, see that the others are all right, and give them a parting word and pat, grip your stick, on which your life may depend in ticklish places, and off you go for a two or three hours’ climb to the top, just as dawn is beginning to show in the east and there is still hardly light to enable you to pick your way among the boulders and fallen timber. The reason you always take a dog with you in Kea hunting is that if you should have the ill-luck to break your neck the dog in time will, owing to hunger, find his way back to the homestead, and thus give silent notice that something has happened to his master. Then the search parties go out. Nip, my favourite spaniel, could spot a Kea on the wing long before I could. When the birds are flying far overhead they will call out ‘keo-o,’ with the last ‘o’ long drawn out. When Nip heard this characteristic note, up would go his head, and he would almost stand on his hind legs. To see him hunt for that Kea in the sky was laughable indeed. I could tell when he found the bird by his intense gaze, and by the beating of his stumpy tail on the ground. Then I would whistle to the Kea, and unsling my gun, telling Nip to watch the Kea as it circled round and dived down. The old dog has fallen backwards many a time, so intent was he on keeping the Kea in sight. Down would come the bird, well within gun-shot—I have had to walk away so that I should not blow one to pieces. When one is paid for killing the birds and five shillings depend on the shot, you do not give the bird a sporting chance by firing at it on the wing. In hunting the Kea you must be up on the mountain top about daylight, to catch the birds going home after their night’s carouse. The Kea, however, will be out feeding and courting all day and all night as well. I have killed them at all hours, from the first streak of dawn to the last faint glimmer of