Walter Goodfellow—The Royal Parrot Finch



181



torrential rains without ceasing day or night. It seemed impossible to

imagine so much rain, just as if a sea was overhead, so solidly it came

down, and one began to wonder if the sun would ever shine again.

The wind still increased until it reached the peak which lasted more

than a day. The palms bent nearly double, and many snapped in two,

while large branches were falling from other trees all around. Nearly

all leaves were stripped off, and the noise and chaos bewildering.

I was alone at the time, living in a ramshackle iron shanty anything

but watertight at the best of times, and two miles from the nearest

village. Mr. Mayer was away weatherbound on a small island off

the coast unable to return. During the two worst nights I got a native

to come and stay with me as I was afraid if the place went I should be

unable to cope with things single handed. The natives were anxious

for me to remove to the village, but for many reasons it was im¬

practicable, as in the first place I doubt if we could have got even the

cages through the storm. Some of the men spent the daylight hours

with me, and with tree trunks and heavy chains strengthened the

place as much as possible, but most of them were occupied in looking

after their own places. Everywhere inside was a foot deep in mud

and water, with bed and everything else wet through. Cooking was

mostly out of the question as fires were hard to keep alight. How

I looked after the birds I don’t know, for they were not yet eating

seed, and fruits were impossible to get. Egg and biscuit was about

all they had, and even this under very difficult conditions. I used

to wonder how the birds were faring outside, for it seemed impossible

that any could live through it. A young Zoster op was picked up near

the house, blown from the nest, which I managed to save and rear.

The regias must have suffered, as all the ripe figs were stripped from

the trees and lay rotten on the ground. After the hurricane had died

down I saw many boys pass by with bunches of dead birds they had

picked up. Yet after all this, just a week later, I had the two youngest

regias I have mentioned brought to me, so their nest had escaped,

and the parent birds must have sat through it all and hatched out

the eggs.


These hurricanes must do considerable damage to bird life through¬

out the islands. It was days later before we began to hear again the



