The stout grasping feet, made for holding on to rocks and trees, were naturally fitted for holding on to a sheep’s back; and the powerful beak, used for grubbing in the earth or tearing off the bark of trees, was admirably fitted for tearing off the flesh of sheep.
Therefore, being, as it were, naturally adapted for such attack, it is not so very strange that the Kea, having been forced into a new way of procuring food, soon developed into a bird of prey.
There is an interesting point mentioned by Professor Benham, in a paper on the Kea, published in the “Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 1906.”
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Humerus of Sheep, said to have been split open by Keas.
Quoting from a correspondent’s paper he says:—“There is another matter I would like to point out to you about Keas; when they have eaten all the flesh off the bone then they tackle the shoulder (i.e., humerus) and leg bone and take all the marrow out of them by chipping them with their beaks until they obtain an entrance. I am sending you four shoulder bones, some old and some fresh ones killed last year.”
Professor Benham kindly gave me one of the bones, which I have here figured, and also lent me the correspondent’s letter.
