170 A Seeker after ll'ird Marts. 



tliey were out of colour, viz : entirely without feathers except 

 tor a few stumps ou their heads, for the fun of seeing what 

 they turned into, when healthy conditions hastened their moult. 



Alas! those happy days came to a sad end. for ' Leo " 

 was tactless enoui^h to get shot, when in the front of a very 

 unsettled mob in the Ceylon riots, and that, doubtless by 

 mistake, for I cannot believe he could have been a seditious 

 character — he used to apologise so prettily when his young- 

 bear's chain got too loose and it kept you imprisoned in a corner 

 of the shop, while he was haggling with a neighbour outside. 

 I was far out in the country, and his widow failed to let me know 

 when she had a sale, and the stock was practically given away, 

 1 hear. 



My most difficult marts were, I think, in Java and 

 Bangalore. In the latter the old man sometimes refused to 

 sell to me, but he did not often have uncommon things, I think ; 

 I got a nice ( ireen Oriole from him, which, alas! escaped after 

 ■■{ week, and many Red-whiskered Bulbuls {Otucompsa jocosa). 

 l)ut his mind was always on Fighting Quails — he was a bad 

 business man ! 



In Java you have to drive round and find the birds, which 

 merchants carry, strung in stacks of cages, from each end of a 

 bamboo shoulder pingal, and offer for sale in the streets, moving 

 along constantly. I never got anyone in Batavia or Bandoeing 

 to divulge where these bird-sellers collect when in repose, but 

 they spend all day running with a crab-like gait, and to my mind 

 always away from the would-be buyer. I saw four kinds of 

 young Mynahs. half-grown, together in a tiny cage, varying 

 from the common browny-black one. to the beautiful Java pure 

 white Mynah. with black bars on the wings {(iraeulit^iea 

 melauoptera), the intermediates being real crossbreds of streaky 

 greys and unsettled colourings. T found the white one a 

 (k'liglitful pet. 



1 was buying a job lot of some smallish greeny " jungle 

 liirrls, with a pretty orange streak on the brows and cheeks, 

 apparently Bulbul relatives, which the man said he would let 

 nie hive the lot (7) at the price of one. as he was tired of them, 

 when, feeling a strange bumbling on my feet. I discovered tw'o 

 yoimg Ilornbills poking and prying (when they could balance 

 their heads into a useable ])osition) round my shoes — he 



