242 Arrival of Rare Foreign Birds.


lay the Hoopoe on his back, dead. He had taken his customar}'

header, had struck the glass and broken his neck. It was a case

of deliberate disobedience on the part of the girl, shutting the

window and leaving it thus without the screen. Oh ! the in-

tensity of the auger that burned in my heart. I could have

scragged the wretched creature with the greatest delight.

Suffice it to say that from that day to this I have never kept a

Hoopoe — nor a bird-girl ! ! ! Reginald Phixupps.



ARRIVAL OF RARE FOREIGN BIRDS.



The last twelve mouths or so have been spent by Mr.

Walter Goodfellow in a collecting trip in New Guinea and the

surrounding islands, and on the 28th of May he reached home

with quite the most remarkable collection of living birds that has

ever arrived in this country. These birds, which are now in

Mrs. Johnstone's fine aviaries at Burrswood, Groombridge, consist

of no less than three species of Birds of Paradise, a Great Black

Cockatoo, a Racket-tailed Parrot, rare Lories and Lorikeets.


The Twelve-wired Bird of Paradise {Selucides alba) is an

extremely beautiful species, of which an example, probably the

only one to reach this country alive before the present importa-

tion, was at the London Zoo. in 1881.


The Red Bird of Paradise {Paradisea rubra), of which

there are two examples, is much like the Great Bird {P. apoda),

but if anything more beautiful, and the plumes are red instead of

yellow as in the latter species. Mr. Goodfellow has secured

several pairs of the King Bird of Paradise (Cicinnurus regius) the

female of which has never before been brought alive to England.

In fact these are the first hens of any Paradise Birds to reach,

this country. Mr. Goodfellow has been most successful with

these birds. He managed to get them on to hard-boiled egg very

soon after they were caught, and he tells me this was a most

useful diet for keeping them in condition. This was afterwards

mixed with insectivorous bird-food and the birds gradually be-

came accustomed to this and have done well on it, all being in

wonderfully good plumage and condition.



