400 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



or South America to obtain stock. Headquarters are established by 

 these agents at some point convenient to the Parrot country, and 

 natives are employed to secure the young birds, which are forwarded 

 to the United States in periodical shipments. Agents have sometimes 

 been sent from this country to Africa to secure supplies of the favourite 

 African Grey Parrot, but these are usually obtained in European ports 

 from vessels arriving with supplies for the large European houses. 



" Small birds, other than Canaries, are generally captured with 

 nets. Expert netters continually visit remote regions in the interest 

 of wholesale houses of Hamburg, London, Liverpool, and other large 

 cities of Europe. Similar expeditions are dispatched from New York 

 and Philadelphia to Cuba and Mexico, and occasionally to more distant 

 lands — even India ; but the principal American houses maintain 

 connections with establishments in Germany, through which their 

 supplies of Old World and South American birds are more commonly 

 procured. 



" Canaries are obtained by agents who visit breeders in the Hartz 

 Mountains, the Tyrol, and other parts of Europe. A few, however, are 

 imported at San Francisco from breeders in China and Japan." 



