S. Porter—A West Indian Diary



53



longer. Another curse is—I put traps down to catch the mice ; this

did have a certain amount of effect till some slugs found the cheese

and ate the bait, and then, of course, no mice were caught. But if

any of your members can help me to overcome these disasters I should

like to begin once more. But for the time being my zest has gone,

as you will gather from this letter. But I cannot imagine how anyone

who writes articles in your Magazine, and I see photos in Cage Birds

of open aviaries and the most glowing accounts of their owners as to

the welfare and health of their birds—well, all I can say is I cannot

imagine how they work it against this climate in winter especially

and the pests of vermin. Now, you have my experience, and I hope this

experience will not prevent members from joining the Avicultural

Society.



A WEST INDIAN DIARY


By S. Porter


After the trim and garden-like beauty of the Bermudas one gets

rather a shock of landing at Nassau in the Bahamas. It strikes one

as a place which the Colonial Office had forgotten about. Its collection

of ramshackle houses meander away from the docks until they are

finally lost in the “ bush ” which covers the main part of island. The

one redeeming feature is the amount of glorious flowering trees and

shrubs which help to hide the squalor of the houses.


As the Bahamas are a vast collection of islands stretching for more

than eight hundred miles from north to south, a short stay on New

Providence Island, on which the capital is situated, gives one no idea

of the bird-life of the whole group.


As every one knows, or least is taught at school, the Bahamas were

discovered by Columbus on his first memorable voyage to the West

and from his description of them we gather that they must have indeed

appeared, in their virgin beauty, as the isles of the blest. Covered

with magnificent vegetation they supported the wonderful bird-life

with which the islands were teeming. Not only did the Spaniards

exterminate in twenty or so years, the whole of the human inhabitants,

but they set rolling the ball of extermination which has not



