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Sydney Waxbill, and other birds which are commonly imported,

so that one would think that if the demand were made, the

supply would be forthcoming.


A NATURALIST’S NOTES IN ECUADOR.


By Walter Goodfellow.


(Continued from page 128).


Since my last article appeared many members of the

Avicultural Society have been kind enough to write and tell me

how much they were interested in it. Some express a hope that

it is not all I have to say on Parrots, and regret that I said little

or nothing about the Amazons. We certainly in our travels

came across thousands of these birds and a great many species of

them, but I must confess to never having been particularly

interested in them, which perhaps accounts for my giving them

but a passing notice. Although I have at one time or another

kept hundreds of Parrots and Parrakeets, I have never possessed

an Amazon of any kind. I have 110 doubt that many of them

make charming pets, and are, perhaps, far more interesting than

many birds for which I have a greater preference. In the present

article I intend to write about some of the Toucans of Ecuador;

but to those members who are more interested in Parrots I may

say that when this series of articles are finished, I will try at

same future date to write more about Parrots as we found them

in their own country.


I think I must always have been fond of Toucans, for

among my earliest recollections is a case of stuffed Toucans we

had in our nursery at home, and I fear that when we reached

boy’s destructive age that that case was demolished by means

otherwise than fair, for the stuffed birds eventually became our

playthings. Eater on in life I became the owner of a charming

Sulphur-breasted Toucan, which only increased my love for

these birds, so when I went out to South America, for the first

time two years ago, and saw them in their native forests, my joy

knew no bounds. How well I remember the very first ones we

saw ! It was in Colombia, in that beautiful but unhealthy belt

of country between the Pacific and the first range of the Andes.

We were travelling on to Cali, and had just gone through our

first night of what we then thought roughing it. We should,

indeed, have been fortunate subsequently always to have found a

sleeping-place as good as this, or even half as good. We had

wasted a lot of time during that first day’s ride gazing at birds



