on Bircl-keeping in China.



25



Further, the supply of foreign birds is very irregular. A

steamer from Australia or Singapore may bring some desirable

species, but the same bird might not be imported again for years

and it is of no use to give an order for certain birds to the dealers.

They are not as amiable or intelligent as our dealers at home who

will do their best to procure a bird which is not in stock and, of

■course, periodicals such as the Avicultural Magazine or Die gefiederte

Welt do not exist in China.


The few bird and animal dealers of Shanghai visit the

arriving steamers and buy what they can get at a cheap price, while

the brightest coloured birds—often not the rarest—generally go to

Japan where they fetch a better price. Of native Chinese birds,

only the very few species, which John Chinaman keeps either for

song, or for fighting respectively for gambling, are usually available,

but to obtain the rarer species from Fokien or Szetchuen, is a task I

have found so far very difficult to accomplish. Even coloured plates

do not help much, as the distances in China are so large and the

transport from the interior of course very difficult. This will, let us

hope, soon become better, when China has more railways and the

connections between the provinces are improved. We may then

hope to obtain the lovely game-birds from Szetchuen and Thibet such

as the white and the blue Crossoptilon and Lophophorus Ihuysii, etc.

which up to now seem to be out of our reach.


The Chinese are in a way great bird fanciers, viz., their love

for birds goes as far as song and ability of talking and fighting is

concerned. The last provides to them an occasion for gambling of

which our eastern friends are only too fond.


Actually bred in captivity by the Chinese there are as far as

I know only two birds. Our yellow friend, the Canary, and the

Cormorant which is used for catching fish in the muddy lakes and

creeks round Scotchau. I have read that the blue Crossoptilon

pheasant is bred in captivity for its tail feathers, which in former

years were in great demand for the hats of the mandarins, but I

have my doubts, at least I have tried in vain, and offered what would

seem to a Chinaman an enormous price to the dealers who sell the

tail feathers. The principal birds kept by the Chinese are the follow¬

ing: The White Eye ( Zosterops simplex), the Jay Thrush ( Garrulax



