Our Sheep-killing Parrot.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4746, 17 July 1883, Page 3

Our Sheep-killing Parrot.

Some time ago, there appeared in the pages of the Country Journ&l a most interesting paper from the pen of Mr T. H. Potts, on the carnivorous habits of the kea, or mountain parrot. Mr Potts' graphio description of tho attacks made by these birds upon the unfortunate sheep, was rendered more forcible by one of Mr T. 8. Cousins' spirited etchings. Probably mott peopld have imagined that the killing of a sheep by one of these parrots must be a comparatively rare .occurrence. Such it not the case, however. In the current number of the Journal it is stated that " the merciless attacks of this parrot on some |of the flocks depastured amidst the southern mountain ranges, continue to exoite alarm amongst sheep farmers on highland runs ; " and this fact forms the raison d'etre for another natural history paper. That Mr Potts has studied the subject with all the enthusiasm of a naturalist, may be gathered from the large amount of information he has | collated. The objeot of the kea, it will no doubt be remembered, is to seoure the kidney of the sheep ; and although perhaps in many cases the animal is lurried to death, instances are not wanting in which the work is more quickly done. " One of the kens has been seen to hover about a small mob near a hut, just alight on a sheep, and run it through the little mob three or four times, remaining on the sheep but a few minutes, till the shepherd could get near enough to drive it away ; and next morning the sheep lay dead. Some of the more experienced and knowing birds just seem to make a dart at the sheep, and at once injure it fatally." Alarm may well be exoited, for out of one specially valuable flock of 600 sheep, no fewer than 200 were killed in the course of a few weeks. " The most striking instance of audaoity was an attack by a kea on a mare in foal belonging to Mr Campbell, of Wanrta. In all probability it would have been killed, but fortunately the stricken animal was observed, and the wound dressed and covered with a plaster of tar. The mare waß damaged in the same spot and in a similar manner to the sheep." The price paid for the destruction of keas appears to have been at the rate of a shilling per head, or 2s 6d per head if the men found their own supplies; and during 1881 no fewer than 800 of thete birds were killed at Wanaka. In the following year, however, only 300 were killed in the same district. The way in which Mr Potts describes kea-hunling deserves to be quoted at length. He says :— " Kea-huntiog is an arduous and uncertain employment. Some of the difficulties attending it may be appreciated, when it is stated that the wild, mountainous country has to be traversed for the most part at night, or before dawn, so as to reaoh the spot frequented by thete birds by daylight. Should a flock of them be met with, and one of them wounded, the remainder are easily obtained. The bond of fellowship appears to be so strongly developed that the cries of a wounded bird at onoe attract the presence of ite mates. This habit is taken advantage of by the hunter or fowler, who usually standß on the wings of the wounded bird, whose calls quiokly summon the remainder of the flook within shooting distance. A shepherd brought into a yard a few sheep for killing. He observed some to have been quite reoenily Decked (this was winter time) ; he started at 3 o'clock in the morning, returning about ten o'olock, having destroyed 19 keas. He managed this by following their cry about daybreak. When he came to the spot he found a hogget being attacked. It lay on tho ground, and was dreadfully torn, yet still alive. He shot one bird, and itood on its wings. By its oriea the keas came so close that he killed three with one shot, and six more with three shots. The next evening he was away again, stayed out all* night, and brought home 25. This same man once killed 41 on one of his expeditions : however, it often happens that a man may be out for days without being able to kill a tingle bird."

Such are a few of the details of a moßt interesting paper, one that it is to be hoped will form a ohapter of a new volume of " Out in the Open."