36



Mr. COLLINGWOOD INGRAM,



that now exists for their side plumes for millinery purposes, for the

high price put on these feathers encourages the native hunters to kill

the birds in a very reckless manner. Believing that they were

threatened with extermination, a few years ago, my father, Sir

William Ingram, decided to make a serious attempt to save them

from this fate.


His first difficulty, of course, was to obtain a suitable tract

of land in a tropical climate, and this he finally overcame by the

purchase of the West Indian Island of Little Tobago. The second

was to procure the birds themselves. For this purpose he sent a

collector to the Aru Islands in 1909, and this man succeeded in

bringing back about fifty living specimens, forty-four of which were

ultimately released on Little Tobago in September of that year. Two

more were liberated in the winter of 1910, and a third in 1912—

these latter having been procured from M. Pauwels, the well-known

Belgian aviculturist. All these were in the uniform chocolate-brown

plumage of the immature bird, in which stage it is almost impossible

to distinguish the sexes. From previous experience, however, my

father believes that the majority of these birds were males, but from

their very small size, there was every reason to suppose that the

last three, at any rate, were undoubted females.


On Jan. 2 last my father and I paid our first visit to Little

Tobago. Situated roughly in 11° 30' N. latitude, and 60° 32 / W.

longitude (it is interesting to note that the Aru Islands are roughly

in 6° S. latitude) it lies about a mile and a half off the north-eastern

end of the main island of Tobago ; a group of rocks known col¬

lectively as Goat Island, dividing the channel about mid-way. A

strong current almost constantly runs through these straits in a

northerly direction, and this, meeting the incoming ocean swell, is

very liable to create a choppy sea, when the crossing in a small boat

becomes a difficult and sometimes dangerous undertaking. A very

convenient landing place, how T ever, is formed by a small sandy cove

on the leeward side of the island.


Little Tobago, about a mile in length, is obviously formed by

the crests of three or four small but tolerably steep hills of meta-

morphic rock, the highest of which now stands some 490ft. above

the sea level. According to the official estimate, the acreage is only



