W. H. Workman—Two Tame Birds



67



Shama, got his tail up literally and metaphorically, so that when a meal¬

worm was put in the cage Jimmy, not taking any chances, darted first

at the Fruit Sucker and, catching him by the neck, knocked him off his

perch on to the bottom of the cage. After putting him out of action

he would return to his mealworm. This, of course, could not go on

as sooner or later the poor Fruit Sucker would be put out of action for

good and all or else die for want of live food. I therefore had to separate

them, and another flight cage, not quite so large, was procured for the

Fruit Sucker. They became fairly tame but they really are not good

cage birds ; so very soft feeders make an awful mess of the cage and

surrounding carpet, etc. Whilst in the cage my method was to put a

thick layer of sawdust on the cage tray over which a piece of newspaper

the full size of the tray was spread. This newspaper had to be changed

every day, otherwise things got smelly.


By the end of May the weather began to get really warm so I took

the opportunity of turning the two villains out, thinking that, in a really

large aviary having a flight of 20 by 10 ft. well planted with a large

shelter house 10 by 10 ft., there would be room for both to live at peace

as in Lady Dunleath’s aviaries, but not a bit of it. The Shama went

for the other bird like a spitfire, so again we had to separate them,

and strange to say they don’t interfere much with other birds of the

seed-eating variety.


From that time on these two birds became excessively tame. In

fact, the Shama is embarrassingly so ; immediately I enter the aviary

he makes a dash at me, and lights on my wrist so as to be absolutely on

the spot when the mealworm box is opened. It is impossible to get rid

of him; throw him off one’s wrist and in half a second he is back again,

tail cocked up, chatting away. Off comes the box lid and, before I can

pick out a mealworm, he has his head between my fingers and down go

two or three at a gulp. By this time I have managed to get hold of

one, put the lid on the box, while he is on my wrist again and his

morning allowance of about six mealworms is a thing of the past.

I may say he gets the same in the evening five days out of the seven.

The difficulty now is to get out of the Shama’s aviary and into the

Fruit Sucker’s, but eventually I get rid of Jimmy and successfully

make my exit unfollowed.



