Some Naturalized Foreigners 



familiar birds from their old homes, too, but no 

 one risked sending for them until steam shortened 

 the ocean crossing. Within the last few years, a 

 number of bird-loving Germans living in Portland, 

 Oregon, have been doing their utmost to naturalize 

 the songsters of the Fatherland on the Pacific slope. 

 Owing partly to the equable climate of the Puget 

 Sound region making migration unnecessary, their 

 efforts are uncommonly successful. Blackbirds, 

 thrushes, starlings, skylarks, green finches, and gold- 

 finches have been acclimatized, and are increasing. 

 A second attempt to introduce the nightingale and 

 the blackcap was made early in the spring of 1902, 

 when a large importation reached New York in 

 safety ; but, shameful to tell, the majority of them 

 were permitted to die on the way to Oregon for 

 want of water ! 



A CHASE IN MID-OCEAN 



If some of these feathered travelers from Europe 

 could write the story of their adventures and their 

 impressions of America, what thrilling, hair-breadth 

 escapes might be told, what a stimulating effect the 

 "odious comparisons" might have on our lightly- 

 enforced or non-existing bird laws! Because the 

 birds chiefly concerned in the following tale couldn't 

 write it, unfortunately it necessarily ends at the 

 opening of its most interesting chapter. 



In an out-of-the-way corner of London, at the 

 back of a bird fancier's shop, where cockatoos and 

 parrots screamed and swore at one another, dogs 

 yelped and whined while straining at their chains, 



217 



