Stray Notes



41



STRAY NOTES


Australian Birds. — It is doubtful whether aviculturists will avail

themselves to any extent of the offer of Australian birds made by the

Australian Zoological Control Board, for the prices asked are, to say

the least of it, high. It appears that a few persons have been entrusted

by the Government with the whole of the wild animal trade of Australia,

and they have been thus enabled to corner the market. Nothing must

be sold out of the country except by them, and they can charge what

prices they like. Moreover, the prices asked are for the stock on board

ship in Australia, the purchaser to take all the risk on the voyage and to

pay the freight. Thus, for a pair of newly caught White Cockatoos,

birds which are regarded as vermin in wheat-growing districts, and are

worth no more than £5 or £6 a pair in England, we are asked to pay

£6 before the specimens have started on their voyage. Very few

aviculturists will buy birds under these conditions, and if the Control

Board wishes to do business they must send a consignment in charge

of a qualified attendant, to be sold here for what they will fetch.


South African Birds. —Messrs. Gamage have been receiving

collections of South African birds lately, and several rarities have been

offered at prices which in these days are not excessive. On a recent

visit I noticed a cage containing a number of Pied Starlings (Spreo

licolor), a brown and ivhite bird with a very conspicuous whitish yellow

iris and yellow base to the otherwise black bill. The species has never

before been imported so far as I am aware, although it is abundant

in many parts of South Africa. Another cage contained some six or

seven Amethyst Starlings (Pliolidaiujes l. verreauxi), of which I wrote

in these notes last month. There was one fine example of the splendid

Black-collared Barbet (Lybius torquatus), two Levaillant’s Barbets, and

a large number of Bed-collared and Bed-shouldered Whydahs.


Young Kagu. — Mr. Heumann sends me further information about

his young Kagu, which he says is now as big as its parents and quite

able to take care of itself. The parents, he says, “ are teaching it to

sing out in the mornings, which is very funny, as its voice is cracking.”

One envies Australian aviculturists their splendid climate, where the

breeding of foreign birds seems to be a much easier matter than it is



