24



Breeding Successes in New Zealand



I had never yet and i trust never will again. Ten hours a day for a

few days on end doing nothing but feeding, watering, cleaning, and

spraying birds is quite a light task and a very welcome break in a life

given to totally different affairs, but when the days drag on over

thirty and the hours are just as long and the temperature gradually

rises and then suddenly falls towards the end of the voyage—that is

another story. The temperature ranged from 94° F. during the passage

in the Panama Canal to 45° F. on arrival in Wellington. Sufficient to

add that the bird attendant was regarded by those on the boat as

slightly mental ”. The usual pleasures, companionships, and flirta¬

tions of an ocean voyage did not appeal ; and, in any case, any in¬

dividual who put in ten hours a day, most of it Tween decks and part

of it in the hospital aft looking after birds and fish, must be mental.


The attendant did survive the voyage, however, even at the loss of

approximately a stone in weight but, so far, has developed no more

serious symptoms of being unbalanced mentally. The difficulties and

dangers of the sea voyage being over on arrival at the inhospitable

port of windy Wellington, the trials and tribulations of entering this

autocratic country had to be faced and eventually overcome, thanks

to the assistance of my friends, the late Mr. A. E. Henley and Mr. J.

Black, of Dunedin. All difficulties, transport arrangements, etc., were

smoothly adjusted and the birds came to Auckland in a mail van

accompanied by the late Mr. Henley, who remained up the wdtole of

the night to see that nothing untoward happened to them on the

journey, particularly as, in addition to the steam heat, we used every

bit of gas in the cylinder on the mail-van by keeping the gas-ring burning

all the time to its fullest extent. Only approaching Auckland, at West-

field, did the gas give out.


On arrival at this city, the birds were accommodated at the aviary

of an aviculturist experienced in attending to their needs. After several

weeks, the distribution of the consignment was completed, many of

the birds being distributed to aviculturists who had requested the

individual species previous to my departure for England.


Two pairs of the last of the consignment of Yellow-wing Sugar

Birds were bought by the writer, kept indoors all the remainder of

the hostile winter of 1935, and one pair was released in each of two



