INDO-CHINA 61 
Some very curious birds new to aviculture were the Black 
Racket-tailed Magpies which frequented the open bushy country, 
and of which we brought home twelve specimens. They became 
very tame in captivity and, besides insect food and fruit, were 
particularly fond of raw meat. Perhaps the most striking thing 
about them is their cobalt-blue eyes, which contrast with their 
sleek dark-green plumage that has a coppery sheen. Their tail 
feathers are long and spatulate. 
It was the first week in March when we started collecting in 
Thua Luu and we left at the end of April. During this all-too- 
short period we had to establish numbers of delicate insectivorous 
birds and make suitable traveling cages. Out of the forty species 
of rare birds collected, twenty-two were imported for the first 
time into Britain. 
The collection of pheasants comprising Rheinart’s Argus, 
Edward’s Blue, Fireback, Bel’s Silver, and Ghigi’s Peacock Pheas- 
ants was an important one. Some of the previous attempts to 
transport the Indo-Chinese pheasants had been unsuccessful owing 
to the birds contracting the fatal avian diphtheria. This is a highly 
contagious disease which is difficult to cure but can be easily pre- 
vented. On the advice of Monsieur Delacour we added a small 
quantity (0.025 per cent) of corrosive sublimate daily to the 
drinking water and this warded off all trouble. This powerful 
poison, even at the strength given, was sufficient to corrode metal 
containers, and would certainly have killed or badly upset most 
mammals, but had no bad effects at all on the pheasants. 
We arrived at Marseilles at the end of May after a voyage of a 
month, traveling to Paris by fast goods train with our mixed and 
valuable collection, which was housed for a while in the Jardin 
des Plantes. 
The day after our arrival was a public holiday and to our sur- 
prise the Jardin des Plantes was closed. We, however, had to get 
at our birds very early in the morning to get them fed and cleaned. 
Having climbed in, we were walking down a main drive to the 
building where our charges were housed when we were con- 
fronted by two police officers, who informed us that it was a 
jour de féte and that no one was allowed in the gardens. I ex- 
plained that we had arrived from Indo-China with a valuable col- 
