i6


then whittle their beaks on a bough, like a butcher sharpening

his knife, before he cuts you off a steak or a chop.


When going to feed, there is a regular system of signals :

a sort of ‘Hullo, my dear, I’m here, are you quite ready?'

Sometimes the lady is not, and she takes no notice. Then Mr.

Malabar grows impatient. ‘ Hullo,’ he says, ‘ hullo, hullo-o-o ! ’

and when he gets like this, she comes—and in he pops. The

way they limb the poor cockroaches is a caution to rattlesnakes.

No doubt 3^oung Malabars appreciate ‘ cockroach chops,’ or

‘clock trotters,’ but think of the feelings of the poor clock, as

he is scientifically chipped to pieces. I have seen them remove

one leg at a time, leaving the poor wretch after each amputation

to carry his leg to the nest ; but there, I won’t be horrid, you

can picture the rest—Leeds Infirmary, on ‘ Operating Day,’ is

not in it.


Now let me sa} T a word on rearing such birds as Malabar

Starlings. I have read in ‘Cassell’s Foreign Cage Birds’ that

Mr. Wiener professes to have reared some Malabars on ordinary

soft mixtures, which he buried in mould and made the birds

search for it, and a fciv mealworms and spiders occasionally, and

a little chopped raw meat. I do not wish to say that the account

is apocryphal ( b ), but shall we say it is to be taken cum grano ?

I say so for the following reasons (i) I have tried chopped meat,

just for curiosity ; they would not so much as look at it, let alone

eat it. (2) They would not eat the ordinary soft mixture them¬

selves, let alone feed with it.


Now let me tell you a true story of what it takes to rear a

nest of Malabars. I watched the old birds feeding, and during

fifteen minutes they alternately visited the nest ten times between

them. They took each time thirty fresh wood ants’ eggs each, or

two big mealworms, or a mashed up black clock. This went 011

from dawn until dusk ; forty visits an hour for ten hours equals

four hundred. Say each time they took thirty ants’ eggs or their

equivalent, it means twelve thousand per diem. Now can you

credit that anyone reared young on soft food, a little chopped raw

beef, a fciv mealworms and spiders occasionally ? Maybe, I say,

your ‘ cargo hatch ’ will hold it; mine wont. And this, bear in

mind, goes on for weeks and weeks. No one who has not tried,

knows what it means to rear a nest of such birds as Malabars.


The young Malabars left the nest on Sunday, September

2nd, on the principle, I suppose, that ‘ the better the day the


(b) If Mr. Farrar impugns the veracity of his fellow aviculturists, let him beware

lest his word be doubted.—A.G.B.



