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Walter Goodfellow—The Royal Parrot Finch



crimson. Then we started to take the seedy centres out on the

point of a spoon, and mixed it with biscuit and the yolk of hard boiled

egg. Hours and hours were spent every day over this until we loathed

the very sight of the fruits ; moreover the outer part of the “ naida ”

variety contained an acid which after a time burnt away the skin on

the finger-tips until they bled and became extremely painful. We put

a native on the job, and at first he rather laughed at the effect of the

fruit on us, but after a few days he suffered just the same. We had

thought that his fingers would be harder. The regias were very fond of

egg, and I think this kept them from falling off in condition. We kept

up this egg and biscuit even after they had taken well to seed, so we

landed here without one weak or thin bird. After we had left the islands

and could get apples, we gave them some every day, and greatly they

enjoyed it, and lettuce also.


Unless one has great patience, and is prepared to stay on the islands

until the birds are well on to seed, it would be useless to go there for them.

We were quite afraid to move out of the reach of the figs, not knowing

how the birds would fare when these were suddenly and entirely stopped.


E. trichroa and E. psittacus certainly feed on grass seeds in a wild

state, but I imagine that the species with entirely red heads, such as

pealei, cyanovirens, and serena must feed the same as regia. Perhaps

this is why so few Peale’s ever come over, because so few survive until

they are eating seed. The other two have not yet been imported,

but as neither of them is as beautiful as regia, it is hardly worth while

bringing them when you can get the other. Cyanovirens comes from

Samoa, and pealei from Fiji.


There is still one more beautiful species to come, that is, tricolor

from Timor, discovered by Alfred Russell Wallace in 1868. It is a

green bird with the face and the whole of the breast blue. It seems very

desirable, and I have no doubt it is a grass feeder as Timor has much

open grass country. I have landed on the island, but never collected

there.


I mentioned how the New Hebrides are subjected to hurricanes and

that in January it was our ill luck to experience one. For more than

two weeks before we had constant high winds often reaching gale

force and gloomy skies. Later, as the wind grew still stronger, came



