Since then it is stated that the bird actually burrows into the living sheep, eating its way down to the kidneys, which form its special delicacy.

As a natural consequence, the bird is being destroyed as rapidly as possible, and one of the rare and curious members of the New Zealand fauna will no doubt shortly cease to exist.
The case affords a remarkable instance of how the climbing feet and powerful hooked beak developed for one set of purposes can be applied to another altogether different purpose, and it also shows how little real stability there may be in what appear to us the most fixed habits of life.

A somewhat similar change of diet has been recorded by the Duke of Argyll, in which a goose, reared by a golden eagle, was taught by its foster-parent to eat flesh, which it continued to do regularly and apparently with great relish.[26] Change of habits appears to be often a result of imitation, of which Mr.
Tegetmeier gives some good examples.

He states that if pigeons are reared exclusively with small grain, as wheat or barley, they will starve before eating beans.

But when they are thus starving, if a bean-eating pigeon is put among them, they follow its example, and thereafter adopt the habit.