S. Porter—A West Indian Diary



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the human inhabitants were soon massacred, and few were left to tell

the tale after the Spanish quitted the island. From the time the

Spaniards set foot on the island the forest commenced to be destroyed,

and gradually the feathered inhabitants were driven farther and

farther back into the interior. The Parrots were doubtless killed in

large numbers for food as these birds were on every other West Indian

Island, and to-day, though one sees a good many birds in the possession

of the inhabitants, it is by no means a common bird, except in the far

interior. Most of the birds one sees in the capital, Port-au-Prince, are

brought by native traders from the neighbouring republic of San

Domingo, where the bird appears to be still common in the dense

forests. The Parrots in Port-au-Prince are either kept in petrol tins

made by the native tinsmiths into horribly inadequate cages, or the

bird is kept at liberty with a clipped wing on a suspended perch on

the patios of the houses. The birds thus kept are usually in good

condition and many talk. The birds in the petrol tin cages have a less

happy fate and are fed only when the owners think about it, and that

is not often ; then they received bits of mango skin, stale bread, or

pieces of yam or sweet potato.


All the birds owned by natives are perfectly tame on account of

their being procured from the nest and hand-reared. I could have

purchased many such birds at upwards from a dollar each, but as

I had already over a dozen Parrots, I only purchased three birds—

what seemed to be a true pair and an odd bird which talked in Spanish.

One of the birds was a youngster not long taken from the nest. This

Parrot rather resembles the Collared Amazon from Jamaica, but lacks

the salmon-pink colouring, also the green is darker and more heavily

marked with black ; the blue on the head is also darker.


A bird familiar to all travellers in the Western Seas is the tiny

Wilson’s Storm Petrel (<Oceanites oceanicus), which follows in the wake

of the ship, systematically quartering, in a ziz-zag course, the surface

of the ocean which has been churned up by the ship’s propellers,

obviously on the look out for small marine life which has been dis¬

turbed. Their flight never falters as they sweep from side to side only

a matter of a few inches above the surface of the ocean. What remark¬

able creatures the Petrels are ! at home in the midst of the most



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