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“ I was clearing out the brute’s cage,” he said, “when somehow he

managed to slip out, and before I knew it, there he was sailing far overhead.

Ah, but he did look grand ! ” said my friend, “ as he went over the spire of

All Souls’. I gave him up for lost, but thought I would advertise for him,

and offer a reward. Some days later, I heard that a Macaw had been

captured in a distant part of Leeds : so I went to see if it was my old

friend. After a lot of trouble I found the house, and on asking if they had

a Macaw, the}' informed me that some workmen had caged some kind of a

foreign hawk. The sufferings of those poor fellows in effecting the capture

appeared to have been appalling. I asked where the bird was,” said Mr.

Marsden, “the woman of the house told me it was in the best bedrooin, of

which it held possession, as no one dared to enter the room. When I entered,

there, sure enough, was my old friend; but,” said Mr. Marsden, with a sly

twinkle of the e}-e, “ you never saw such a mess as that room was in—a

grand bedstead nearly in pieces, and the other furniture damaged past

repair. I asked the woman what she had fed the bird on ? Her reply

was, 1 Please, Sir, we gave him cats' meat, as he seemed some sort of a hawk.'

And, sure enough, the poor fellow had been existing on this strange diet

for several days. However,” said Mr. Marsden, “I was jolly glad to get him

back; I had a big account to settle with the workmen for damage in capture ,

and for ruined furniture, besides the advertised reward.”


The whole story struck me as so intensely comic—the best bedroom

given up to the Macaw, and the cats’ meat diet—that I venture to send it

to the Magazine in the hope that it will make my readers laugh as it did me.


C. D. Farrar.



MIMICRY BY BIRDS IN A WILD STATE.


Sir, —I was for many years in India but never heard a Wild Parrakeet

imitate any other bird. The Indian Skylark, Crested Lark, and Singing

Bush-lark are all imitative, and I should say invariably introduce the notes

of other birds into their songs. I have heard an English Skylark imitate a

Chaffinch.


Last j’ear I had an Indian Grey-winged Blackbird ( Merula bulbul)

which I disposed of, and this year I was astonished at hearing some of his

notes proceeding from an English Blackbird close to the house, and I hear

them every day.


One of the Starlings which frequent the chimneys of my house,

imitated a Blackbird this }>ear long before the Blackbirds began singing.


The Butcher-bird in India is also a mimic, and I believe the American

Mocking-bird is so.


With reference to this subject, I have often wondered if any birds in

the Counties frequented b} r Nightingales improve their songs by the intro¬

duction of Nightingale’s notes. Nightingales are not supposed to come to

Devonshire, but they make an exception sometimes in favour of Honiton.

The year before last I heard one, and this year there are at least two to be

heard, day and night, close to my house.



C. Harrison.



