(which the sheep-farmers look upon as an earnest of salvation) was the idea of wholesale poisoning by means of grain saturated with phosphorus, which is now sprinkled broadcast over the rabbithaunted land. The method of preparing it is simple. Large barrels are made with closely-fitting lids. These are half-filled with oats, on which boiling water is then poured. When the oats are thoroughly soaked and swollen, the phosphorus, which has been prepared separately in a pan of hot water, is poured in and the lid quickly closed, to avoid all risk from the poisonous phosphoric fumes. The barrel is then rolled over and over for some minutes, till the grain has thoroughly absorbed the poison, after which, the feast of death has only to be spread. How the sheep are prevented from sharing the fatal banquet I cannot imagine-certainly all other graminivorous animals must perish, including the already too rare native birds, which can never be replaced. But as regards other creatures, the settlers say it would be easy to import them all afresh, if only the too prolific bunnies can be exterminated. The present method of destruction is so simple and so cheap that the sale of rabbit-skins more than covers the expense incurred, so the sufferers have gathered heart for a work which offers some hope of success, and they hope that the days of their tribulation may have a speedy end. Nevertheless, it is evident that sheep-farming in Australia and New Zealand is no longer the sure and certain short cut to wealth which it was accounted some years ago. Indeed, there is evident danger that a new settler may too readily be tempted by low prices to purchase or rent lands which he may too late discover to be mere rabbit-warrens. There are limited land companies which profess to offer most advantageous terms to capitalists and settlers; but as some of the chief promoters of these companies are men holding vast tracts of land which are now entirely abandoned to the rabbits, there is good reason for caution in such investments. Nor is this the only danger which may beset the unfortunate sheep-farmer in these modern days. The settlers in some of the higher districts of New Zealand are cruelly harassed by flocks of green parrots, which abound on certain of the mountain ranges where sheep-runs have been established. In the deep-wooded glens these beautiful and innocent-looking birds spend their days, but at night they come forth (like owls) seeking what they may devour; and, unfortunately for the sheep-farmers, they have quite recently developed a strong liking for mutton, to which they help themselves in the most thievish and cruel manner. This is altogether contrary to parrot habits, as these beautiful birds are all by nature vegetarians, and live on fruit, leaves, and all manner of dainty green food, of which they find an abundant supply all the year round in their native forests. Certainly I have seen tame parrots which were by no means averse to eating meat or picking bones; these, however, had acquired gross habits, altogether contrary to nature, while in captivity. But this very remarkable mountain parrot, or kea, as it is called, has adopted this most obnoxious habit entirely of its own accord. It is positively asserted that, till a very recent period, it was as strict a vegetarian as all its brethren, and that only within the last few years has it acquired a taste for blood. It is not above ten or twelve years since the first sheep are known to have been attacked by this new foe; now it is the scourge of the sheep-runs on many of the high levels, and is a more pitiless foe than the hooded crows and the kites, or even the eagles of our own Scottish Highlands. It is supposed to have first tasted flesh during some seasons of scarcity or unusually severe winters, when the forests lay deep in snow, and all the feathered tribes shared in the general starvation. Then flocks of these pretty parrots, at all times somewhat bold in their habits, approached human dwellings, and discovered a new feature, which they had never seen in the old days, when the Maoris (the aboriginal New Zealanders) possessed their own land. Now they found larders in the open air, where whole carcasses of sheep were hanging, ready for the use of the white settlers. They tasted this new food, and liked it so well that they very soon entirely gave up their vegetarianism, and became strictly carnivorous. This certainly is a curious fact in natural history, and one which, I believe, has no parallel in ornithology, though I have seen bears in the Himalayas which had also learnt to prefer sheep to apricots, and the sparrows of Australia have shown us that a carnivorous bird may become frugivorous. The parrots thenceforth frequented the meat-gallows, tearing off large quantities of fat. They would appear to have studied the carcasses scientifically and anatomically-for they soon discovered that the most delicate fat lies all round the kidneys-and seem to have taken accurate observations of the easiest method of attack, to secure this dainty from the living animal. By what process of reasoning they came to connect the carcasses on the meat-gallows with the flocks on the mountains, or to learn. the exact position of the kidneys in a living sheep, it were hard to Nestor notabilis. say; but from the time when parrots first tasted mutton-fat (only about twelve years ago) the shepherds on the higher sheep-runs began to remark that many of their sheep had sores on the saddle, just in front of the hips. In every case the wound was in the same place, directly above the kidneys. Some sheep were slightly wounded and recovered, retaining only a scar or scab, but others were so seriously injured as to be past hope. As wasps invariably attack the ripest fruit, so the sheep thus injured were invariably those in best condition. For awhile no clue could be discovered to the unknown and mischievous foe, but at length a shepherd from one of the high sheep-runs declared that he was convinced that the murderous robber was none other than the parrot of the high mountain ranges, His suggestion was treated as nonsense, for the nocturnal habits of the bird being then unknown, no one suspected its midnight raids. Ere long, however, the shepherd was able to prove that he had not spoken without good reason, for a parrot, waxing bolder than its fellows, was observed perched on a sheep, on the identical spot where the others had been wounded, busily engaged in tearing apart the wool to get at the flesh. The taste, thus acquired, spread so rapidly, that the whole tribe of mountain parrots have now abjured fruits, in favour of mutton; and the devastation wrought by them is so terrible that one sheep station reports that within five months two hundred fine young wethers, out of a flock of three hundred, were so cruelly injured that they all died. Just imagine! two-thirds of a healthy flock falling victims to these bloodthirsty parrots ! A still more serious case was that of a sheep-run at Matatapu, where, within one month, nineteen out of a flock of twenty strong Lincoln rams were killed by the pretty emerald-green birds. But though these are, of course, exceptional cases, there is literally no flock, however watched and tended, which has not to record some deaths from this cause-four per cent. being the general average. The flocks suffer most during the severe winters, when the poor sheep are exhausted by struggling through deep snow, and often burdened with a double coat of wool, the growth of two years. They toil through the snow-drifts till they are stupefied, and then a flock of keas (ever on the watch for their opportunities) alight near them, hopping about, till at last they perch on the back of a victimalways on the same spot-and, profiting by the firm grip afforded them by the long wool, they fasten their sharp claws in the fleece, the wretched sheep vainly attempting to shake them off. Then, with their strong cruel beaks (which are about two inches in length, with the upper mandible curved, forming a sharp hook), they proceed to tear open the flesh, but do not care to eat it. These horrible epicures tear their way through the writhing, tortured animal, till they reach the kidneys, whence they remove the coveted fat, and then leave the poor creature to die in lingering agony. Of course, war to the death is now waged by all shepherds against these malefactors, and a reward of a shilling a head is paid for dead keas; so a new class of mountain rangers has sprung up-men who are professedly parrot-exterminators, and who wander at nights over the bleak mountain sheep-runs, kindling fires to attract these nocturnal birds. Woe be to the unwary parrot who comes within range his pretty feather coat is doomed to adorn the hat of some lady in a far country. But, strange to say, the kea, formerly so bold, now seems to have acquired a guilty fear of man and a dread of just retribution for his misdeeds, and so shuns the approach of all human beings. Thus, while the acclimatised sparrow of Australia has learnt to prefer luscious fruits and succulent vegetables to its former diet of insects and worms, the mountain parrot of New Zealand has developed precisely the contrary tastes. But in each case these birds have assumed a totally new character, and the agriculturist and the sheep-farmer have alike cause for bitter enmity against these feathered foes. C. F. GORDON-CUMMING. 567 G HANS SACHS. Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft, ERMAN poetry, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, considered in reference to the men that represented it, shows a twofold division, to which we may, not inappropriately, give the respective names of Poetry of the Court and Poetry of the Workshop. To the old German epics, to the heroic cycle which depicted the struggles of Christianity with Paganism, the rude society of the feudal ages in its general features, to the Nibelungen Lied and to Gudrun, there had succeeded the more personal poetry of the minnesingers or bards of love. The minnesingers of Germany were a copy, modified by circumstances of language and country, of the troubadours and trouvères of France. In France, lyrical poetry had sprung up and blossomed in the midst of court life, and at the very foot of the throne. The proudest lords of Provence and of Languedoc, the Counts of Toulouse, the Dukes of Aquitaine, the Dauphins of Vienne and of Auvergne, the Princes of Orange, the Counts of Foix, all these appear on the noble roll of the troubadours. In Germany, likewise, the ranks of the minnesingers were recruited from the noblest and highest in the land. Emperors and Kings, Dukes and Princes, Counts and Knights, echoed, in harsher tones, the polished strains of the provençal bards. We may still read the verses of two members of the house of Hohenstaufen, those of Henry VI., son of the celebrated Barbarossa, and of Konrad the Younger, who perished at Naples by the hands of the executioner. We still possess the songs of Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, whose flowing verse would have deserved notice and praise even if he had been of less exalted rank; of Duke Henry of Breslau, of the Margrave Otto of Brandenburg. Hartman von der Aue, the learned Wolfram von Eschenbach and Pleinfeld, Walther von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von Liechtenstein, were all of noble blood and knightly rank. The sojourn of Poesy at the court of princes, amongst brave knights and fair women, was but of short duration. From the grey battlements and lofty towers of the mountain fortress it winged its |
