etc.” Unfortunately he does not state that any of his informants ever saw a Kea at work or whether the notes were merely the sheep-station rumours, of which a bookful could be collected to-day.
I fully believe that many of Mr. Potts’s correspondents were eye-witnesses of the Kea’s depredations, but in finding the truth we cannot take supposed facts to be authentic evidence.
In 1978 the Hon. D. Menzies, in a paper on the Kea, wrote as if certain of the bird’s guilt, but he gives no authority for his statement.
In a book entitled “The History of the Birds of New Zealand,” Sir Walter Buller gives a fairly complete description of the bird and its habits, and also an illustration of a Kea attacking a sheep, but again one searches in vain for the name of actual eye-witnesses. There is mention made of a shepherd who saw a Kea attacking some sheep while he was driving them, but no name was given; and, as nothing is known of the man, the evidence dwindles away to nothing.
There is, however, a correct description of the method of the Kea’s attack (forwarded to Sir W. Buller by Mr. J. G. Shrimpton), but its writer does not state that he ever saw the bird killing or attacking flocks.
In 1884 Reischeck wrote an article on the Kea, but, though he saw them eating the carcases, and also found wool and fat in their crops, he never saw one attack a sheep.
Mr. C. C. Huddlestone, in 1891, gave an account of his experiences in Kea country, and strongly condemned the bird, but he himself never saw the bird in the act of murdering.
In 1894 Mr. Taylor White accused the bird of sheep killing, but yet does not seem to have been an eye-witness. He bases his conclusions on hearsay, for he says:—“One day my brother John came home and said that he knew what caused the holes in the backs of the sheep. It was done by the Kea. This surprised me greatly, but I soon afterwards had evidence of the fact myself, for when some of these birds had once found out that blood of the sheep was good for food, others were initiated into the performance.”
