240



S. Porter—Wanderings in the Far East



a very rare one. I felt quite thrilled for the moment, thinking it might

be an Argus, but it turned out to be a young male Javanese Peafowl,

the price asked was the equivalent of 35s., which I found afterwards

was a very reasonable price for one of these magnificent birds. I had

unfortunately to leave it, as I could hardly ask my friend to look

after it.


There were many examples of the Buffalo Mynah (Aethiopsar fuscus

torquatus), a bird which the natives say talks.


After the market ve visited the bird shops and saw there a galaxy

of old favourites, such as Diamo±id Sparrows, Cockatiels, Roseate,

Lemon-crested, and Mollucan Cockatoos, and Australians, such as

Zebra Finches, Budgerigars, etc. There w^ere many Malayan birds,

Java Sparrows (these in thousands), Dyal Birds, Babblers, Zosterops,

Weavers, Mongolian and Chinese Larks, also many examples of the

Malayan Shama, a very much larger and finer bird tnan the Indian

one. There were examples of a rare Starling from Siam, Sturno-

paster contra floweri, a strikingly handsome bird of black and white

colouring. I was very tempted to purchase a tame Black-capped Lory

and a Mollucan Cockatoo but I resisted.


On the whole I think the market and shops in Penang were better

than those of Singapore, certainly the birds were in better condition.


Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Maiaya was very disappointing

from a bird point of view. There was only one bird shop of any size,

but that was stocked with very few birds of indigenous origin, the

only ones being a quantity of Javanese Tree Ducks (Dendrocycna

javanica ). These birds I think were not of local origin but had come

from Java. They are very attractive and I felt rather tempted to

get some on my return, but I did not visit Kuala Lumpur again. The

price asked was very reasonable, only $1, or 2s. 4 d. Here there

were more overcrowded crates of doves and thousands of Java Sparrows,

in comparison with the tens of thousands of these latter birds which

one sees in the bird shops there seem to be very few kept by the natives.

I rather fancy that they, like the Sunbirds and flower-peckers, are

used for culinary purposes by the rich Chinese, the wretched birds being

clapped alive into a ball of clay and thrown into an oven, later on

when the bird is taken out all the feathers come off in the clay. Efforts



