Correspondence



31



A stranger often gets a sharper impression than one who through constant

association has had bis critical faculties dulled. No doubt thirty years’

association with the bird shops of the Far East might blunt my susceptibilities

to the sufferings of the birds.


It is a strange thing that if the Chinese in Singapore are such adepts at

keeping birds that it is impossible to buy any kind of “ soft food ” except

“ dried flies ”, and also that one never sees such birds as Chats, Robins, Sun-

birds, Pittas, and the like, in the shops. In fact, I asked for these birds,

especially Pittas, as they are my favourites and abound in Malaya, but I was

told that they were not kept as the owners of the shops did not know how to

feed them ! I would ask Mr. Frost how many “ Softbiils ” other than Mynahs

and Bulbuls he has procured in his dealings with the Chinese in Singapore.


Mr. Frost, speaking about my lamentable lack of knowledge regarding the

trapping of Pheasants, says: “ If the writer had even the foggiest notion of the

methods employed he would realize the utter improbability of a Pheasant

ever being noosed by the neck.” As recently as July, Mons. I)elacour, writing;

in the Magazine about the trapping of the Crested Argus, says : “ The natives

build miles of low hurdles across the forest with an opening every twenty or

thirty yards : a snare made of a flexible vine is set at each opening. The birds

run along the hurdles and try to get out through the openings, when they are

caught by the leg. They are captured alive unless some carnivorous mammal

comes and kills them before they are found. But often their legs are ‘ ringed ’

or injured, and in that case the bird never recovers. Sometimes snares are

baited with paddy or fruit: the bird is then caught by the neck and almost always

killed.” (The italics are mine.) And if Mons. Delacour’s word is to be taken,

and I am sure it is, for few people know more about Pheasants than he does

both here and in the Far East, Mr. Frost, in spite of his thirty years or so

contact with the Far East, and also having recently been to the very home of

the Crested Argus, still has something to learn about the way Pheasants are

trapped.


I can only say that all the birds I purchased, Argus and Firebacks, from

the shops, died from disease in a short time after I purchased them. None of

the twenty or so which I purchased from the derided “ Zoo ” died, and I landed

all in this country safely. The Argus Pheasants which I saw in the shops were

kept in baskets only large enough for fowls and they were unable to stand

upright. They were fed solely on rice, which was thrown in from the top on to

the filth on the bottom of the baskets. Fifty per cent of the Pheasants which

I saw in Singapore in the shops and the “ Zoo ” were maimed, this consisting

mainly of broken and twisted legs, due, I was told, to the trapping by nooses.


I brought home several bamboo perches on which Parrots are chained ;

these measure 4 inches in length. I saw one large crate of Black-capped

Lories—all the birds looked as though they had been dipped in rice pudding

and then dried ; not many survived at the end of a month. I have several

Eclectus whose legs are nearly severed owing to the tightness of the chains

attached to them.


Lastly, I think that the majority of humane aviculturists who like to

see birds decently kept would share my condemnation if they but saw the

bird shops of Singapore.



Sydney Porter.



