Aubyn Trevor-Battye—Random Lines



161



Madame Lecallier and Monsieur Delacour eagerly purchase

rarities, and several that have lately come to England have found

their way to Madame Lecallier’s aviaries, amongst them some Amethyst

Starlings and a beautiful African Long-tailed Roller, which I hear is

extremely tame. Monsieur A. Decoux is another French aviculturist,

who goes in principally for various Waxbills and small Finches, and

who has been successful in breeding rare hybrids.


Our French confreres in aviculture will help to instil into us renewed

energy as well as creating a friendly rivalry. Monsieur Delacour's

pluck in recommencing a collection of birds and mammals after the

whole of his magnificent one was destroyed in the War at Yillers-

Bretonneux, is certainly an example to anyone not to give in on account

of losses and disappointments. He became a member of the

Avicultural Society when he was about 20 years old, and although

still quite young he knows as much as all aviculturists of a more

advanced age, and a good deal more than most of any age ! He has

had birds which many aviculturists have never even seen, and he aims

at obtaining those that one knows of as inhabiting the mountains

of Tibet, the forests of Java, the valleys of the Himalayas, the jungles

of South America, but which to the everyday aviculturist are as

fauna of the moon !



RANDOM LINES


By Aubyn Trevor-Battye, M.A., F.Z.S.


In answer to the Editor’s request for notes, 1 wish that I could

send some avicultural news of interest, but fear that in its stead I can

only offer a few rambling remarks upon the free bird-life of our own

district in the past two seasons; and moreover, in doing this I am only

too sensible that I have nothing really new to add to that which has

been the experience of other observers.


I never remember to have seen so many Warblers. Our particular

corner of East Hampshire is not perhaps really well suited to these

birds, for we are on the shoulder of a hill which itself runs up the

centre of a valley, and is dominated by a great chalk escarpment,



