182 Walter Goodfellow—Some Reminiscences of a Collector


(I emphasize “ for museums ” as I never collected one skin for plumage

purposes) I gradually drifted into a collector of live birds, at one time

combining the two. This was at a time when rarities we are now

accustomed to see imported as a matter of course were few and far

between. At first, and for many years, my collections were made

for the owners of large private aviaries. I think what induced me

to take up the life, quite apart from the risks and excitement of it,

was that others here at home could get to know and enjoy as living

creatures some of the rare and beautiful birds hitherto only known

from skins in museums. In this way I have been able to introduce to

aviculture endless species for the first time. I remember as a boy how

I gazed enraptured at exotic birds in museums and natural history

books and longed to see them alive with my own eyes. Since those

days I have seen all these in their own surroundings and even brought

most of them home alive and discovered many others hitherto

unknown to science. There are a few remarkable birds I still hope

to get one day.


I am aware there are people of a certain mentality who consider

it cruel to bring these captives away from their own lands, and I have

many times had it brought to my notice. I recall an amusing incident

of some years back on one of my journeys home with a very valuable

consignment of birds. I was attending to my charges one day when

a solemn-faced missionary suddenly announced his presence with the

exclamation : “ Young man, don’t you think it is a very cruel thing

you are doing, to make God’s beautiful creatures prisoners like this.

Can’t I appeal to your better nature to let them go when we get to

land ! ” This land would have been the shores of the Eed Sea, so

I leave it for readers to judge where the cruelty would have come in.

No consideration to be taken of the risk and expense I had been put

to, or even the freight paid on them. No, just let those birds from

tropical forests go on the desert shores of the Eed Sea, and according

to our friend I should have done an act of kindness, and his mind no

doubt would have been easy while mine would have been haunted

by the cruel thing I had done.


I could give a number of instances from my own personal experience

where recently caught birds have escaped from cages even in the



