Page:The Kea, a New Zealand problem (1909).pdf/95

Rh meanwhile holding on and balancing itself with outstretched wings. Very soon the sheep strikes a rock or stumbles and rolls over and over down the hill, only to get on its feet again and repeat the performance time after time. When the beast stumbles the Kea rises on its wings, and settles down again on the sheep when it has regained its feet.

This awful race is continued until, bruised by its numerous falls, utterly exhausted by its death struggles and maddened with pain, the terrified animal stumbles to rise no more, and becomes an easy prey to the Kea.

Several men have witnessed these awful rushes, and have also come upon the murderer gorging himself on the live sheep, tearing at the kidney fat and pulling at the entrails.

The following are a few instances illustrating this method of attack.

Mr. J. Sutherland writes:—“In 1887 I was keeping a boundary where Keas were numerous, and on several occasions I saw them attack sheep. I saw a sheep running down the hill with a Kea hanging on. I followed after it, and found the sheep lying in the gully with the Kea tearing away at it. I drove it off. The sheep was not dead, but the wool and the skin were torn, and a hole was made in the sheep’s back, just above the kidney, a wound from which it would have died; however, I killed it to put it out of pain.”

Mr. H. E. Cameron gives the following account:—“One day while mustering in the summer time of 1895, I saw a Kea on a sheep’s back clinging to the wool and digging his beak into its back, and a number of others flying about. I went down to the sheep with some other men. Some entrails had been pulled through a hole in its back and we had to kill the sheep. I was camped at the foot of Davies’ Saddle (Longslip Station) one foggy day, and at three o’clock heard a great screaming of Keas; so I went out to see what they were at. On going down the creek a short distance I saw a sheep coming down the face of the hill as fast as it could, with a Kea on its hips and twelve more birds following and screaming. The sheep, when it got to the foot of the hill, ran under a bank and went down on its