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Mrs. Elizabeth Horsbrugh :



“WILLIE WINKIE.”


By Elizabeth Horsbrugh.


“Willie Winkie ” is a Java Sparrow ancl therefore worth

eightpence, wholesale market price. His price to us is not to be

counted, either in pence, shillings, or pounds sterling.


His history is lost in the tides of Calcutta Harbour. When

my husband’s collection of Indian birds started on its homeward

voyage from Calcutta to Southampton, there was seen in the rigging

of the “ Konigin der Nederlanden ” a little grey-coated bird with a

black head and tail, white ear patches, red beak and pink legs, his

breast a soft dove colour. Only a Java Sparrow !


The collection was safely on board. Cage upon cage of costly

Sunbirds, Shamas, Minivets, Woodpeckers, Orioles, Flower-peckers,

etc.; many of them new to English aviculture, and any one of them

worth the weight in gold of the little grey man hopping gaily on the

rigging. A passenger looked up and saw him, and turned to the col¬

lector, who had worked tirelessly for months to gather this collection

and who was taking a moment’s breathing space. His valuable

birds were housed safely on board, and the labour of months close

to his hand, with only the journey home before him — difficult

enough, and implying much work it is true—but the birds ivere there,

and granted the care and attention, the rest was on the knees of the

gods. “ One of your birds is loose! ” the passenger called to him.

Not for nothing has he collected birds all over India, in Aru —

New Guinea, in British Guiana, in Trinidad. Where the Sparrow

came from he did not know, but he guessed him to be tame and he

had a spare cage. “ Hold out your finger and call him down ” he

said to a lady standing by* The finger was held out and down came

our “ Winkie,” and before he knew wdiat had happened, he was

inside a little wooden cage, and his liberty was gone. What went

on inside his little black and white head during the long journey

home we cannot tell.


At Genoa, Mr. Astley and my husband met the ship, and

some of the rarer and the more delicate birds were removed,

either to be brought to England overland, or to find a resting

place at Mr. Astley’s villa on the Lake of Como. The ship



