Sydney Porter—Wanderings in the Far East



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hardier than the ones procured in the south, though had I not pur¬

chased any in Hong Kong I doubt whether I should have found any

anywhere else. Life is like that, if one misses an opportunity it seldom

comes again. Many times I have been told, when I have seen something

in a certain port: “ Oh, leave it until you get to so-and-so ; there are

much better ones there.” In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred

there never were any more, and we regretted our lost opportunity and

cursed ourselves for taking other people’s advice. But I don’t think

I ever regretted purchasing my little Euby-throats. They were little

gems. They accompanied me on many months of wandering, and I

grew very fond of them. One or two of my birds had obviously been in

captivity for a long time, for their bibs were very much faded. They are

delicate birds and need more attention than the average “ soft-bill ”,

especially during the moult, when the birds are apt to go “ light ” and

die. They need a rich insectivorous food and plenty of live food. I

found that the coming in of wasp grubs just coincided with the moult,

and on these the birds mainly subsisted. How they manage to survive

so long in the Chinese shops I don’t know, for they appear to be fed

on a dry meal composed of rice flour and ground “ dried flies ”. My

birds all became delightfully tame and will take food from one’s fingers.


Only one of my birds sings, but what an exquisite song it is, soft,

sweet, and continuous. In the Philippine Islands, one of the winter

homes of this species, I heard, as I sat beside a small babbling brook,

the song coming from out of a dense tangle of tropical vegetation ; it

seemed like the faint and far-away echo of some soft sweet haunting

melody from a fairy musical box, breathing the spirit of a far-away golden

age when life was attuned to a gentler and more harmonious key.

Beside it even the song of the Nightingale seems coarse, at least it does

to my ears, but then we all have our own ideas regarding music. There

are few bird songs I have ever heard which appeal to me like the soft

strains of the Euby-throat.


Euby-throats are not uncommon in South China in the winter

time, having migrated thither from their summer home in Eastern

Siberia, Kamtschatka, and Northern China. They are of Eobin-like

demeanour, and are found in the low herbage searching for insects upon

which they feed.



