Practical Bird-Keeping.



45



for Rollers are other large insect-eaters and such birds as small

Gulls, Plovers, and the Great Laughing Kingfishers ( Dacelo ).


Woodpeckers I never bothered much about, as they are better

known in Europe than Rollers, but I reared, on cockroaches chiefly,

the beautiful Golden-backed species (Braehypternus aurantius) which

is the commonest over most of India, and the best Woodpecker I

have seen in captivity. However, our own species are so good, that

they quite sufficiently represent the family, and I hope some who

have had experience with them will summarize their results with

this family in the present series.


I never troubled to send any Rollers or Woodpeckers home,

there being already European species available, for I made a rule,

when sending birds for the Zoo, to avoid as far as possible represen¬

tatives of groups already available either in nature or in the trade,

holding that it is not the business of a scientific official to encourage

stinginess or want of enterprise in scientific societies, or to interfere

with the hard-earned livelihood of those much and unjustly abused

individuals, our dealers.


For the same reason I had little to do with Barbets, the Blue-

fronted ( Cyanops asiatica) being already well-known when I went to

India in 1894; but my experience with the Coppersmith or Crimson¬

breasted Barbet ( Xantholcema licematocepliala) may be worth re¬

cording, as it throws light on some recurrent avicultural problems.

In the Marshalls’ monograph of the Capitoniclce or Barbets will he

found the statement that Barbets do not thrive in captivity, a

statement that lias been duly copied by other writers ignorant of

aviculture. Now everyone knows that Barbets are easy subjects,

treated as Mr. Townsend has recommended for Tanagers—in fact,

the Blue-cheeked is one of the easiest soft-bills (the term is used

technically, not literally, as all Barbets bite like fiends) one can keep;

and I fancy that my friend the Coppersmith started the story. He

is the commonest of Barbets, plying his miniature gong in the street

trees in Calcutta ; yet I was told he could not be kept. I thought

the reason was that satoo, the standard soft-bill food, did not suit

him, and I found that adult birds could be meated off, or rather

fruited off’ ” on banana, and live on that alone ; young birds could

also be reared on this simple diet, and I found that at any rate when



