37 §



Coj'respondence, Notes, etc.



thousands cost. Such huge shipments reach Liverpool, Antwerp, Hamburg,

Marseilles and Italian ports frequently.


The overcrowding results in tainted food, foul water and great

mortality during the voyage.


The surviving birds are sold as quickly as possible on arrival at the

European ports.


If the imports are large the price falls to a very low figure. Because

they are so cheap, thoughtless people who know nothing about bird-keeping

bny these birds for themselves or to give them to children, in whose hands

they mostly die soon from want of proper care.


I wish to protest against this overtrading which consists in shipping

thousands of birds on the chance of some hundreds arriving alive and sale¬

able, and which results not only in cruelty, but in the fact that many of

these birds, though living on arrival, have contracted blood-poisoning or

other disease and die soon after.


The genuine bird lover does not want to see hundreds of one species

on the market, when a few dozen would satisfy all the intelligent buyers.

He is quite willing to pay a fair price for healthy birds, and does not want

large numbers of sickly birds cheap, and to see them die from preventible

disease contracted on the voyage to this country.


Owing to the overtrading of the present day it has become exceed-

ingly difficult to buy newly arrived birds in fairly healthy condition. Any

one buying a dozen of the beautiful Cordon-bleu African Finches newly

arrived will be lucky if with the utmost care two remain alive after a week.

Our old friend, the Grey African talking Parrot, when he was brought over

singly as a pet of the sailors, used to live fifty years and more with suitable care.

Now he is shipped in boxes of twenty-five or more, with the result that

though the price has fallen to two or three half-crowns for a just landed

bird, the chance of his living is so small and the probability of his suffering

from blood poisioning is so great—though he may look quite well—that

a bird that has been some years in Europe is cheaper at £5 than the other

at as many shillings.


To stop this trade and to counteract this waste of bird-life and the

attendant cruelty the United States of America have prohibited the

exportation of birds altogether, and many of the Australian Colonies seem

on the point of doing so, if the law has not been promulgated already.


This measure seems to be too drastic to be quite wise and is perhaps

not altogether opportune.


A better remedy than prohibitation might have been the imposition

of an Export Duty of, say, One Shilling a pair of Finches and small

Parrakeets, and as much per head on Parrots.


This would give the birds sufficient value before shipment to ensure

proper care being taken of them on board ship, whilst the Duty would



