Kea

“ Indeed, you can never suffer from ennui while they remain with you; for, while you are driving one away from your tent, another will be trying his beak on the coat that you have hung up on a tree for safety. With their merry eyes, and their shining coats, their perky ways, and their tameness and extreme inquisitiveness, they are welcome and unwelcome at the same time.
The Kea is one of the most inquisitive birds imaginable, and, indeed, it is this trait in his character that has partly brought about his downfall. ”

“ The eclipse had commenced. We had only a quarter of an hour yet to the period of totality.
In a few short words, I explained to Frank and the sailors he had brought with him the entire situation in all its gravity. I told them all I had seen and heard; and their own eyes confirmed my report: for there stood Kea full in view, round the corner of the pinnacle, beyond the open chasm, in her white dress, with her hands clasped in inarticulate prayer, and her pale face turned up appealingly towards the cold moonlight. She had but a quarter of an hour left to live. ”

“ In order to try to bring this important question to a final conclusion, I set to work to collect written statements from actual eye-witnesses, who lived or had lived in Kea country, and by carefully sifting and arranging this evidence to obtain the actual facts about this interesting bird.
In response to several requests, kindly published for me by the newspapers, I have received a large amount of evidence from men who live, or have lived, in the Kea country, viz., musterers, shepherds, head-shepherds, managers of stations, runholders, and station owners. ”

“ See, see, how lovingly he stretches out his fiery arms for you in his chamber below there! When he rises in his might to put out the lamp that rides in heaven, then leap into his embrace. 'Tis the signal he gives you! Till then, sit still, and await your husband!"
Kea sat down by the edge of the precipice, on an isolated block of black basalt, and leaning her little chin on her small white hand, gazed below in awe and silent expectation on the flood of lava.
I knew, then, exactly what Kalaua meant. At the precise moment of the total eclipse, Kea was to leap into the abyss of the volcano. ”

“ You don't mean to say your people go on believing still in such childish nonsense as gods and goddesses?"
Kea's voice sank lower than ever, and she glanced around her with a frightened little gaze. "We don't worship them, you know," she answered apologetically, under her breath almost; "but we can't help believing there's somebody there, of course, some super-natural being, when we hear Pélé groaning and moaning and sobbing in the dead of night, or see her casting up huge red-hot stones and showers of lava, whenever she's angry." ”

“ I answered. "Ride on to Hilo. Is this a time to make plans for the future? We'll discuss all that, Kea, on the deck of the Hornet."
That evening, on board the British gunboat, lighted up by the terrific glare overhead, we had time to reflect what it all meant, and to feel ourselves free to think and speak again.
"What will you do now, Kea?" I asked the poor girl, as she sat there, trembling, in a small cabin chair, while the red flames still illumined for miles and miles the summit and flanks of Mauna Loa. "Do you wish to stop here in your own island?" ”

“ You read from her eyes what her lips are saying.
"Pélé's uneasy again, my niece," the old man would murmur often as he entered. "I never knew the crater more disturbed. Pélé is angry. She will flood Hawaii. She will drown the people. We must try to quiet her."
Kea looked down always when he spoke like that with a guilty look upon her poor young face. I understood that look. I knew she considered she had cheated the goddess by rescuing me from the flames, and I grieved to think that I should cause her unhappiness. ”

“ It is a well established fact that the Kea is found in the mountainous regions of the South Island of New Zealand; but whether it lives among the snow-capped peaks and glaciers, or lower down near the forest line, is a question that has not so far been satisfactorily answered.
So much romance has surrounded the bird since its discovery that it is difficult to get people to come down to the sober facts of the case. ”

“ The call bird, which had never been in a small cage before, and was very wild when we first put her in the evening before, had got quite used to the surroundings, and had learned how to hang on with her feet and beak, so that she was not knocked about when being carried. It is marvellous how quickly a Kea will adapt itself to circumstances. ”

“ He was Kea's uncle. For Kea's sake, I ardently hoped so.
They set my leg that very night, and Frank and Kalaua in turns sat up to nurse me. I can hardly say which of the two was kinder or tenderer. Kalaua watched me, indeed, as a woman watches by her son's bedside. He was ready with drink, or food, or medicine, whenever I wanted it. His wakeful eyelids never closed for a moment. No mother could have tended her own child more patiently.
"Is the volcano still at work, Frank?" I asked once, in a painless interval. I could never forget, even on a sick bed, that I was by trade a man of science. ”

“ Not only is the country in which the Kea lives dangerous as well as difficult to travel over, but it is in some of the least inaccessible places in that almost inaccessible country, high up in the mighty peaks, that the Kea makes its home. ”

“ The lack of the records of eye-witnesses. b. In many places where Keas were known to live, no sheep had been killed after the Kea’s method. c. Many Keas in captivity would not eat meat, etc. d. Many of the men who accused the bird were paid for exterminating them, and they would naturally wish the story to be believed. Over this circumstantial evidence a war of words has waged for many years, and once or twice it has seemed as if the Kea would be exterminated before the question was finally settled. ”

“ Even if we take the dates and places of the Kea’s discovery, the facts do not uphold the theory. In 1856 Mr. W. Mantell found the Kea in Southland,—the exact spot is not recorded. Then, instead of finding it a few miles further north in Otago, Dr. Haast discovered it three years later at Mt. Cook in Canterbury, about two hundred miles further north, thus missing the large Otago province which lies between. It was not till three years later that Sir James Hector reported it to be among the snow mountains of the intervening province. ”

“ There is a good deal of evidence to show that lack of ordinary food greatly influenced the Kea towards sheep-killing.
As the Kea feeds on berries, grubs, roots, etc., there is no doubt that in winter and spring the excessive snow and heavy frost, so prevalent in Kea country, must often make the procuring of food very difficult. Again, as at this period the eggs are sometimes laid, and perhaps the young ones have to be fed, the lack of ordinary food must at times make the bird desperate. ”

“ It was ideal weather to see the Kea, but certainly not the weather one would have chosen for a long ride on horseback in order to take photographs on an open mountain side.
We were away in good time; and, with my camera protected with sacks, we slowly made our way over the saddle that separated us from the Mathias River. We crossed the summit in the face of a biting wind, and took the track leading down to the river flat. This was steep and
Natural entrance to a Kea run: The hole goes ten feet into the rock. ”

“ I think it is one of the most striking and interesting facts in New Zealand ornithology that the Kea, living in alpine country, where the severity of the winter is especially felt, builds its nest, lays its eggs, hatches and rears its young, all during the severest months of the winter. During this time, its domain is swept by a succession of severe storms of cold wind, accompanied by snow, which covers the ground many inches deep for months ; and, when the sky is clear, very severe frosts set in, which turn every- thing into a solid frozen mass. ”

“ When harassed they often retreat to the most inaccessible fastnesses of the Alps. Here they are practically safe, for this exceedingly rough country can never be of much use except for scenic purposes. It is, therefore, doubtful if the Kea will become extinct for many years to come. ”

“ Yet again, they usually confine their attacks to certain localities, and when the birds there are shot the killing may cease for years, if not altogether. Some shepherds put the annual loss in the Kea country at 30 or 40 per cent., but from what I can ascertain this is an exaggeration, for, if this percentage were killed annually, there would soon be no sheep left in the Kea-infested area.
Sometimes, at special places, the killing may be so severe that it becomes a very serious menace to the sheep-farmers, as can be seen from the following instances. ”

“ In places where it has not been too much harassed by the Kea-hunter it shows little fear of man, and the traveller can always depend on an hour or two of amusement whenever the bird appears. When one is camping out among the ranges, the birds often come round and amuse themselves at the traveller’s expense. They seem to take the whole oversight of the preparations for camp; they investigate the camp fire; they pull the cooking utensils about; they test the strength of the tent ropes ”

“ By the same post, I have also received a note from my sister, who is now stopping down at the Kentish rectory where Kea lives with her English relations, and who says, among sundry other pieces of domestic criticism, "What a dainty, charming, lovable girl your pretty little Hawaiian really is, Tom! So gentle and good-natured, and so sweetly pensive! I can hardly believe, myself, there's anything of the cannibal Sandwich Islander in her! She's as fair as I am, and quite as European in all her ideas and thoughts and sentiments. ”

“ The area of the Kea’s distribution is continuous, but very limited. It is confined solely to the mountain country of the South Island of New Zealand, which extends for 400 miles in one direction and 80 miles in the other, making altogther an area of some 40,000 square miles. ”

“ That evening at four o’clock we again climbed to the traps. Shortly after our arrival we saw a bird, and I called it down, when it proved to be the unattached male of the morning, readily distinguished by the state of his moult. We set a trap out on the ledge of a rock, evening up the surface with small stones. The bird came down, and taking the stones one by one, dropped them over the edge. Next, standing well outside the trap, he began chewing one of the sticks, with the result that the cage fell down. It was very laughable, but it scared the Kea, and he flew away ”

“ On my return journey I had experience of the fury of the winter tempests that sweep over the area. My attempt to
Kea country: Glenthorne Homestead (3000 ft. alt.) , and the Birdwood Range (7000 ft. alt.) . ”

“ In fact, they had not proceeded far before the poor beast fell down, and could no more be made to rise; so that, taking off his saddle and bridle, our traveller with extreme reluctance abandoned him to his fate, and began to toil along on foot after his guide. In this way they reached Kea, a small fishing-village on the Niger, where Park embarked in a fisherman’s canoe which was going down the stream, while the guide returned to Sego. ”

“ Owing to the thick drizzle that had now set in, and the fact that the ground sloped to the edge of the gorge, we had to take great care that we did not slip over into the dark ravine below.
In August, 1906, while trying to destroy some Keas that had been killing sheep for some time, Mr. Urquhart discovered the nest and determined not only to rob it, but at the same time to kill the old birds.
So one night, with several of his men, armed with spades and crow-bars, he climbed along the edge of the cliff; but owing to the darkness they were unable at first to locate the nest. ”

“ What really started the northern migration theory was knowledge of the fact that, though the Keas themselves never migrated northward in the early days, yet the habit of sheep-killing has extended from Otago northward to Nelson. ”

“ Nearly every writer on the subject repeats the statement, and some even quote it as a proof of the Kea’s intelligence.
In his “History of New Zealand Birds,” Sir W. Buller quotes a letter from Mr. W. Chamberlain, of Harbourne Hall, Birmingham, who cited the statement as an indication of the parrot’s reasoning powers. He says:—“Consider for a moment the sequence of events and the extraordinary change of habit attributed to the parrot. ”

“ Maka’u ka lehua i ke kanaka. Another version has it Maka’u ke kanaka i ka lehua; Man fears the lehua. The form here used is perhaps an ironical allusion to man’s fondness not only to despoil the tree of its scarlet flowers, but womanhood, the woman it represented.
Footnote 156: (return) Kea-au. Often shortened in pronunciation to Ke-au, a fishing village in Puna near Hilo town. ”

“ I named Keate. You were not at Eton, and I must tell you, therefore, what manner of man it was that I named, though I think you must have some idea of him already, for wherever from utmost Canada to Bundelcund—wherever there was the whitewashed wall of an officer’s room, or of any other apartment in which English gentlemen are forced to kick their heels, there likely enough (in the days of his reign) the head of Keate would be seen scratched or drawn with those various degrees of skill which one observes in the representations of saints. ”

“ In the Ode to Autumn, and Ode to a Nightingale, the Hellenic choiceness is found touched with the warmer hues of romance.
There is something deeply tragic in the short story of Keats's life. The seeds of consumption were in him; he felt the stirrings of a potent genius, but he knew that he could not wait for it to unfold, but must die
Before high-piled books in charactry
Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain. ”