Page:The Kea, a New Zealand problem (1909).pdf/134

130 The second general method is to shoot the birds while they are feeding on the remains of a sheep. The men take the bearings of some sheep that has been killed, and if they cannot find a carcase they sometimes kill a beast and then camp near it at night. Moonlight nights are generally chosen, so that the birds can be seen at the body, and usually a number of Keas fly down from the surrounding peaks and begin to gorge themselves. The men do not shoot them at once, but wait until the birds have stuffed themselves with meat and fat. Then they are shot one after the other, for they are too lazy and full to hasten away.

One correspondent gives the following account:—“At Makaroa Station in spring I was shooting Keas pretty well every night when I carried a gun. I would hunt about for dead carcases. If I came on a freshly-killed sheep, or one partly eaten, I was always sure of a good haul. I would wait about until the Keas came. Sometimes they would arrive in mobs; at other times in a straggling way. I would then take up my position, a little distance off the meat, and wait until they got on to it to feed. My object was to line them so as to get as many as I could at one shot. Though they would fly off at each shot, they would be back again almost immediately. I would keep at them in this way until they got a little frightened, then I would follow them up and shoot them as I could. I think the largest number that I ever got in that way was sixty-three off two dead sheep. I have at other times got from twenty to fifty; but often I would only get about six or seven, and at other times none at all.”

Mr. Robert Guthrie, an old Kea-hunter, thus describes his experience in connection with one “camp,” where the Keas were very troublesome:—“The ‘camp’ was as usual high up; it was situated on a large plateau, where it was impossible to get near without disturbing the sheep and the Keas. I used to wait till well on in the night, and go, as quietly as possible, straight to the camp. The Keas, nine of them, were there the first night. I got two of them, and they came fairly regularly until I had got them all but one. This one was