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Sydney Porter—Notes from Australia



wings. The trouble is that no one who has hand-reared these birds

ever wants to part with them. But a friend in South Australia has

promised to hand-rear me some this next summer and I hope to pick

them up when I visit Australia again, which I hope to do at the end of

this year.


On the first day I landed in Australia I saw six fine Blue Bonnets

in a bird shop in Melbourne, and knowing that opportunities seldom

come twice, I secured the lot. I was glad I did at the time, for I saw

no more offered for sale whilst in Australia. The birds were supposed

to be aviary-moulted specimens, but I rather doubt it, though they

were in perfect feather and quite tame. The dealer kept them for a time

until I went to Adelaide, when Mr. Harvey kindly let me have them

at his place, but he warned me that it was almost impossible to keep

wild caught ones alive. Before I left Adelaide one hen was so ill that

I left her ; later on in Sydney two cocks died, after that I used to give

seed which had been soaked in cod-liver oil for 48 hours ; this seemed

to revive the other three and they lived for almost two months in New

Zealand, then they went. The birds seemed in perfect condition—-fat,

lively, and in perfectly normal condition—then one morning one finds

them with their head feathers erected and looking rather “ puffy ”

about the head ; their droppings become a peculiar yellow colour and

look like custard, the bird goes thin very quickly, and in a week it is

all over, the bird by that time being almost a skeleton. I cannot under¬

stand it unless it is that the bird needs some kind of food which we do

not know of. Maybe they are like some of the Australian marsupials

which seem to need special kinds of food at certain times of the year

when they (the foods) generate certain chemicals which are necessary

to the animal’s welfare. It was a great disappointment as they were

such fine specimens.


The first wild Blue Bonnets I saw were at Lagoon Sheep Station

in the east central districts of South Australia. Here I found them

quite common, being most numerous around the homestead where

they seemed to congregate in small flocks or family parties of from four

to ten. They spent a good deal of their time on the ground, searching

no doubt for small seeds, and when disturbed flew into a nearby tree.

If disturbed again they always flew away in pairs. The cock’s tail when



