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An Aviculturist in Portugal.



paean, not far from the spot where the gardener had buried his

tormenter.


I never kept the birds of the country to any extent. A few

Jays and Magpies, one of the latter quite a fair talker and extra¬

ordinarily tame and amusing. Once a man brought me a young

Solan Goose, picked up on the shore after a storm ; a diabolically

fierce brute, that I entrusted to my groom to feed on fresh sardines.

He soon died, and “ Victorino,” the groom, explained his death by

saying: “May it please your Excellency, I knew he could not live

long, as every time I gave him a sardine he brought up two.”

Another time a friend wrote from the country that some Hobbies

were building near his home (a wonderful old Franciscan Monastery

in the wilds) and I asked him to send me a couple of young ones.

Later I received a box containing seventeen Kestrels, which were

duly set free.


I never kept the native bird, the Blue Thrush, which I think

attracted me most of all, though a pair nested regularly within a

stone’s throw of one of our places in the Upper Douro district.

It is not scarce, but chance prevented my ever being in the right

place at the right time, and I dared not trust a Portuguese to get

one for me.


The final tragedy came when I moved house and transferred

my birds temporarily to an aviary I found ready in my new home:

a square, rather shut-in affair that had been used for pigeons. In

five days every one was dead. I attempt no explanation and

cannot bear to dwell on it. After that for a year, until I came

to live in England, my aviary was peopled by Malabar Squirrels :

jolly little chaps, but these are not aviculture, nor are the Coatis

and other vermin that shared my home.


The other day I had a deal with my Lisbon friend, who sent

me a collection of birds by steamer, in a wonderful cage of his own

invention ; another chance shot, which ended as I deserved, in a lot

of commoners, but all in perfect plumage, and not a casualty from

Lisbon to Winchester.



