THE



105



Avicultural Magazine,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF

THE AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.


Third Series .— Vol. VI.—No. 4. —All rights reserved. FEBRUARY, 1915.



MY HUMMING BIRDS, AND HOW I

OBTAINED THEM.


By a French Member of the Society.


November, 1914.


.... And first of all I wish to say that I feel the time

somewhat ill-chosen to write about my birds,—when this country

still feels the tread of the German heel, and so many daily give

their lives to save it, as well as dear old England, from further

indignities. But our Editor received my promise of this little con¬

tribution of mine to his great and incessant work, as many months

back as last April,—and the time has come to fulfil it at last.


It was in February last we set out for the West Indies,

intent on bringing back Humming-birds to Europe. Our success, or

rather our luck with many species of African Sun-birds, had made

us bolder, and preparations had not been spared to ensure, as we

thought, a good number of Hummers being obtained in the islands

w T e were to call at, in going and returning. I don’t propose to dwell

here on the horrors of a journey that resolved itself into a succession

of gales, varied, on board, by an epidemic of small-pox among the

black soldiers bound for Martinique ; or on discomforts, personal to

myself, that resulted from my occupation of cabins which were

described as the best, yet turned out to be very much the worst for

their stuffiness and noisy position. Then, in our eagerness to obtain

the birds, we had not reckoned with such difficulties as the stupidity

of officials, native slackness and lack of initiative; and, of course,

port upon port was passed, yet no Humming Birds appeared. “It



