256 A FOREIGNER OF DISTINCTION 



three pairs of the splendid rifle-bird (Ptilorrhis inter- 

 cedens), of which species the female had never previously 

 been brought alive to this country. In transferring 

 them from the travelling cages to the aviary, a hen 

 rifle-bird escaped, and although seen afterwards several 

 times in a neighbouring wood (last on September 7) 

 it defied recapture, and was written off as lost. It was, 

 indeed, most unlikely, even if the bird could pick up a 

 living after close confinement during the long voyage 

 from one hemisphere to another, that it would escape 

 the common fate of rare creatures in this country by 

 the hand of some over-curious gunner ; yet it has done 

 so during a period of more than ten weeks, during 

 which on one night the mercury registered seventeen 

 degrees of frost, and there were besides several excep- 

 tionally heavy and cold rainfalls. Attractive possi- 

 bilities are suggested of naturalising these gorgeous 

 birds in our woodlands ; but they are probably illusory, 

 for it is not likely that birds-of-paradise could find a 

 sufficient supply of berries and insects to sustain them 

 through an ordinary English winter. 



Mr. Brooke of Hoddam, who has a richly furnished 

 and successful aviary at his beautiful place on the 

 Annan (once the residence of acrid old Kirkpatrick 

 Sharpe), tells me that these birds endure any reasonable 

 degree of winter cold, but suffer miserably in the east 

 winds of a British spring. 



