K. Drake—The Breeding of the Zosterop Lateralis



195



the rate of four or five a day and so with the Pekin Robins, a bird had

only to show a speck of raw flesh or blood and it was seized upon by

its starving companions and soon devoured. By the end of the voyage

not half of the birds survived to tell the tale. The survivors were taken

no doubt and housed fairly decently in the dealers’ shops and will

in the course of time be sold to those who rather than pay a collector

or reputable dealer a few shillings more per pair choose to encourage

such shameful traffic. These people are rather like the women who,

buying a fur, choose to close their eyes to all the horrors which have been

enacted before the soft luxurious pelt is displayed in softly carpeted

West End saloons. They choose to close their eyes to the fact that for

one pair of birds sold in the shops perhaps seven or eight pairs have

died miserably during the transportation. This consignment of birds

is no exception, nearly all the birds sent in large quantities from both

Africa and the Far East are shipped under similar conditions.


The owner of the birds stated that he had allowed for at least half the

consignment dying and even then he would make a fair profit on the

survivors.



THE BREEDING OF THE ZOSTEROP

LATERALIS + ZOS: FLAIRFRONS


By K. Drake


The nest was made in a very thick bush and right in the centre,

almost impossible to get at, the materials used were hay, wool, cotton,

hair, and a very little moss, so firm and so neat, a cup-shaped nest.

The eggs looked a dirty or a bluey white with tiny little reddish brown

marks at the larger end, but so very faint. When I first saw the young

bird, it was very well feathered and flew strongly, that was 29th April.

The colouring was greyish green on the back and whittish green under¬

neath and faint eye rims.


A month after leaving nest the eye rims are very white, and the

back greener, I see no trace of grey yet as in the Lateralis, and the



