Sydney Porter—-Wanderings in the Far Fast



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is a bright red patch ; the lower parts are pale green, fading to blue.

The female is quite different; she has a brown head and is bright

green with a yellow throat and only a small blue patch on the back.

This strange little Parrot is very rarely imported into this country,

why, I don’t know, considering how attractive it is. It is supposed

to be hard to keep alive and is said to need a very high temperature.

I found no difficulty in keeping my birds alive, but I fed them mainly

on fruit and green food and never subjected them to a low temperature.

These birds are entirely different from, any other Parrot and are not

closely related to any other member of the order. Their movements

are curiously slow and deliberate, reminding one of a chameleon ; they

appear to have no neck and the beak seems to rest upon the breast.

Little or nothing is known of the wild life of this bird and it appears

to have been very seldom kept in captivity over here. Most of the

birds I purchased seemed to be starving as no doubt they were. I would

like to have purchased the whole lot, but had I have done so their

places would soon have been filled by others. All the birds I saw

were in immature plumage. I do not think that they are often offered

for sale in Singapore : at a certain time of the year a number come in,

but if they are not bought up they quickly die as their delicate con¬

stitutions cannot stand the indigestible rice upon which the dealers

feed them. Then there are the Lories ; these, too, are fastened with a

piece of bamboo with two holes in it, one for the birds’ legs to go through

and the other for the perch to go through. I purchased three of the

very rare Perfect Lorikeets (Psitteuteles euteles), a small bird from the

island of Timor, mostly bright green, and looking rather like very small

Scaly-breasted Lorikeets, but lacking the yellow marking on the breast.

Unfortunately these birds escaped in Johore. I purchased a couple

of the Jobie Island form of the Black-capped Lory: this has a red

collar which the typical form lacks. In addition to these I obtained

a perfect pair of Scarlet Lories (Eos bornea), also an odd one which

proved to be a great pet, in fact it was the favourite of everyone

on the boat I travelled home on. It loved to crawl all over one, gently

touching one’s ears and lips with its brush-like tongue ; it liked to be

laid on its back and have its breast tickled; however, since being

placed in an aviary it has lost a great deal of its tameness. I also



