i8 
volume VII. of Bird Noles, page 3 ; llie ^^rey ones proved to be a 
species of Mockini^-bird, one of wliich reached us alive, the 
other being eaten by the ship's cat : the small green ones were 
young Nonpareil Buntings, five of which were landed, three 
males and two females; the others were Indigo Buntings, two 
males and three females, and an odd brown bird probably a 
Seed-Finch. 
The next voyage nearly ended in disaster for the ship. 
After loading her homeward cargo, she drified on to a sand bank, 
and although she was ultimately refloated undamaged, this acci- 
dent prevented Mr. Porter from going on shore in search of birds, 
and he only brought six Buntings, three Nonpareil and three 
Indigo Buntings. A native who had caught about sixty birds, 
arrived a little too late with them. 
Up to this time Mr. Porter had not attempted to bring 
other than seed-eaters and one or two of the coarser feeding soft- 
bills, but when he sailed again in March 1908 for Cartagena we 
asked him to make a speciality of Tanagers and other fruit and 
insect feeders. We supplied him with about twenty pounds of a 
soft food mixture ready for use. This mixture turned sour in 
the tropical heat, and had to be thrown away, but fortunately we 
also supplied him with some loose ants' cocoons and dried flies, 
fruit of all kinds is of course plentiful in the Tropics, and as the 
ship is the home of countless myriads of cockroaches, and several 
other kinds of creeping things, we expected at least a dozen 
species of beautiful Tangers, etc. new to aviculture. However, 
the ship only touched at Cartagena, and Mr. Porter had only time 
to make one hurried visit to the Market Place. He secured 
twenty-eight finches of various species, and six or seven Tanagers ; 
while at Laguna, three Thrushes, one Hangnest and thirty-five 
" Doniinicoes " were collected. 
Few died on the voyage, most of the losses were through 
accidents and escapes. (Mr. J. Walsh, of Blackburn, has since 
made us some excellent cages which will reduce escapes to a 
minimum). In Mid-September the "John " arrived off Falmouth, 
and Mr. SutclifFe received a wire " forty-five seed-eaters, five 
others alive." The ship had however to proceed to Bremen, 
Germany, and owing to fog and calm it was not until a month 
