190



Mr. Hubert D. Astley,



although he was, before I sent him to the Show, in perfect condition,

and if anything a little too fat. I noticed him one day in December

looking dim about the eye, and when he flew (for he generally came

out of his cage to have his bath) he moved feebly compared with

his usually swift and robust flight, and on catching him, found

his plump breast was dwindling, and that he was going light ! after

that, he rapidly became worse, and the post-mortem showed death

from ‘ bird-fever.’ And then the lovely little Brown-backed ‘Robins’

followed ; first the female then the male. Most despairing ! In any

case, they would not again have been seen on a show bench, for the

little Robins returned with the water upset, the sand all over the

food, and both birds exceedingly puffy and the worse for wear ! and

only from Paddington to Newbury, after crossing London irom

Westminster.


Well! let me leave this sad part of my account and speak of

the Blue Niltava as a pet.


I took him out to Italy for August and September, where he

moulted successfully, and enjoyed the warmth, and in addition to

that, plenty of fresh insect food, especially black meadow crickets,

which are about the size of an English house cricket but more

thickly built. They are easy enough to catch, for they live in

colonies on grassy slopes, two or three in a burrow of their own

making, and these burrows are very apparent, holes which a six¬

pence would about cover over. One takes a long piece of stiff grass,

twiddles it into the burrow, and after a moment or two, out runs a

grillo (cricket) which is at once seized and put into a bottle. One

can catch thirty or forty in a very short time. These are the

crickets which in Italy, (and I fancy it is much the same kind of

insect in Japan) are kept in tiny cages on account of their so-called

song. They are very pugilistic, and if one sits still, one sees two

issue from different burrows and spar at each other like game-cocks.


The Blue Niltava appreciated them highly; they went down,

after a certain amount of banging about, like oysters. He always

had a flight in a room, and loved his bath, which he would take two

or three times a day. He would settle on the back of a chair,

flirting his tail from one side to the other, and uttering a sharp

“ Tck,” besides which he had an extremely pretty song; at moments



