A Talk about 
Foreign Birds. 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
(162) 
A Talk About Foreign Birds. 
With Special Reference to the Hobby in Scotland. 
By GAVIN 
The keeping of foreign birds has been in¬ 
dulged in since the earliest of times. In ancient 
Scripture we read that Solomon had a navy of 
ships, and that they brought ivory and apes and 
Peacocks, and when that wise King spake of 
all fowls I have no doubt he gave his experi¬ 
ence of those he obtained from foreign. lands 
also, and I believe it has always been the custom 
when sailors and travellers visited foreign coun¬ 
tries to bring home specimens of the avifauna 
of these countries. The Parrot family lent them¬ 
selves more readily to this custom than perhaps 
any others. Their bright plumage, together 
with their adaptability to captivity, were reasons 
enough to make them favourites with seamen, 
and as most of them found a ready market 
when the ship returned, it is easy to see how 
these birds so admirably suited Jack. But I 
think there is another reason why Parrots were 
among the first foreign birds to be imported to 
this and other countries. These birds nest in 
holes in trees, and are more easily caught than 
most birds on that account. For instance, every 
schoolboy knows that it is easier to catch a 
Sparrow on the nest than, say, a Chaffinch, and, 
as the average sailor has no appliances for bird- 
catching, Parrots naturally fell an easy 
prey. Although foreign birds have been im¬ 
ported for centuries, it is only within the last 
thirty or forty years that they have come in 
number and variety. Even nine years ago, when 
I started keeping them, the trade of importing 
might be said to have been in its infancy, but 
the money that is now paid for imported birds 
must amount to several hundred thousand pounds 
per annum. 
Foreign Bird Literature. 
The literature about them at that time was 
also scant and dear. There were then no 
specialist weekly papers for cage-birds, and the 
papers there were dealt more particularly with 
poultry and Pigeons, and in some cases with 
quadrupeds also, so that foreign birds hardly 
ever had a look in at all. True, there was the 
“ Avicultural Magazine,” and it was doing a 
useful work among a favoured few, but among 
the many ignorance prevailed, and the names of 
the different species were to most people so 
much Greek or Latin, or Hindustani for the 
matter of that. Contrast that with the present 
time, Now we have in “ Cage Birds ” a most 
up-to-date weekly journal, dealing exclusively 
with birds, foreign birds receiving their just share 
of attention. Besides, there are two monthly 
magazines dealing almost entirely with foreign 
birds, and The Bird World, which remembers 
ALSTON* 
them with a large share of its articles. Several 
cheap books have also been written on foreign 
birds, and anyone wanting to learn about them 
has plenty of reliable literature ready at his 
hand. 
The Time to Purchase. 
What is the best time of the year to purchase 
imported foreign birds? This question, like 
many others, is more easily asked than answered. 
Coming from warm countries, as most foreign 
birds do, it needs no stretch of imagination to see 
that winter is not the proper time, as the ex¬ 
treme change from a warm to a cold clime 
cannot be expected to agree with them. Spring 
appeals to us as a more suitable time, but as a 
large proportion of foreign birds come from the 
Antipodes, their natural moulting season is in 
our spring, and, as we all know, the moulting 
season is a trying time for birds, even when the 
conditions are favourable; therefore it is much 
more trying when they have to endure a lower 
temperature at a time when their vitality has 
been reduced by a long journey. I have no 
hesitation in saying that summer is apparently 
the best season to purchase imported foreign 
bird^s, but it is best not to be toe hasty in arriving 
at conclusions. 
Birds are often confined in large numbers in 
small compartments during long journeys, and 
the consequence is they arrive in very bad con¬ 
dition, their heads often bare and their flight 
and tail feathers broken. Given roomy quar¬ 
ters, their body feathers are soon replaced, but 
their wing and tail feathers will not grow again 
till they moult the following spring, and to 
keep them all through the autumn and winter 
in this ragged condition is what no aviarist likes. 
I have never heard autumn advocated as the 
best time to get foreign birds. The shortening 
days and the weather turning cold and damp 
seem instinctively to tell us that is not the time. 
But there are other factors to be reckoned with 
when getting together a collection of rare 
foreigners. In the first place, it is only at cer¬ 
tain seasons that some species are imported and 
only once in a while that others are. Thus you 
have either to secure them then or pay double 
afterwards, and run the risk of perhaps not get¬ 
ting them at all. Then there are other species 
that only appear in the market at very rare 
intervals, and you have to buy there and then, 
or you may have grey hairs before you have 
another chance. In reality, there is no right 
time for purchasing imported birds, but I think 
for preference early spring is the best. They 
have time then to recover from the journey 
before the moult sets in. Of course you must 
