78



S. Porter—A West Indian Diary







The little hen never appear to be very robust or as strong as her brother,

her legs appeared to be slightly weak at the “ knees ” ! But they both

stood the journey all right and arrived in England in fairly good

condition. On arrival here they were put into a warmed birdroom

and put out every day with all the other Amazons I brought back,

fifteen in number, in a large outdoor aviary containing many growing

trees. Here they thoroughly enjoyed themselves and judging by the

noise they made I wonder we didn’t get complaints from the neighbours !

At all events, they did so much damage to the growing trees that I had

to clear another smaller aviary which contained no vegetation, but

in which I fixed up decayed logs and twiggy branches on which they

could vent their destructive desires. In this aviary they were put

every day wet or fine. In fact the rain did them all a great deal of

good, and most of them dearly loved a rain bath, especially the Salle’s

Amazons. The birds would hang upside down from the top of the

aviary, open their wings, and relax all their feathers and get thoroughly

drenched, screaming all the while at the top of their voices. After

three months the Actives moulted their body feathers but not the tail

or flights, and soon appeared almost like the adult bird. The hen’s

tail feathers had never been very good, they appeared rather soft and

brittle, during the time she was moulting, new tail feathers grew on

the base of the old ones and these did not drop off until the new feathers

were fully grown.


Now, after five months both biids appear to be in perfect condition,

but both have entirely different dispositions. The cock is a good-

natured and lovable bird, while the hen is quick-tempered, peevish,

and always ready to give a nasty nip. In fact, both seem to exhibit

typically masculine and feminine traits.


There is every chance that given strict protection the small band of

survivors will manage to exist for many years to come, but should one

of the marauding parties of so-called scientific explorers set up their

camp in Jamaica as they have done in many other islands within

recent years, then I am afraid that the fate of this species will be quickly

sealed, and all there will be left to tell the tale will be a few fusty skins

in cabinets, and the world will be poorer by the loss of one more interesting

species swept into oblivion by so-called civilized Man.



