Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1895 — SHEEP-KILLING PARROTS. [ARTICLE]

SHEEP-KILLING PARROTS.

They Pounce Upon Their Victim* and Drill Holes in Tneir ltack*. Mr. Taylor White contribute* to the : Zoologist an account of the kea, a Hull i green bird of the parrot type, known as j Nestor notabilis, whose sheep-killing propensities have lately attracted much attention. Mr. Aifred Russel Wallace says that the kea deserted its natural forests and berries first for the pickings of the farmer's slaughter yards, then for the live sheep, and finally, by a refinement of evolutionary adaptation. for the delicate fat which overlies the sheep’s kidney. Mr. White, who was farming sheep on the New Zealand mountains before the kea had learnt its bad habits, and who has had the best opportunity for studying the bird, disputes this statement. The kea, he says, could not have deserted its berries, for it is only found above the forest line, where berries do not grow. Its food consists naturally’ chiefly of lichens on stones, and It hit on the practice of killing sheep in all probability by accident. Suddenly it was found that some sheep, which had missed a shearing and had long wool, would die in the night, 6 and on skinning, a small round hole far down the back would be discovered. For a long time the cause of this was unknown, but one day the kea was caught In the act, and thenceforth its proceedings were closely watched. The kea’s habit of sheep killing and seeking out the kidney fat has been held up as one of the most striking instances of rapid adaptation,’ but Mr. White thinks the adaptation was occasioned by the resemblance of the long and possibly frozen wool to the lichens on which the birds feed. The parrot, it 'seems, never touches the kidney fat at all, but simply wants the blood, and the reason for its choosing a spot far back was not the proximity of gny special delicacy, but the fact that it could not be reached there, and that the position and long hair gave it a purchase during the frantic efforts which the victim made to escape.