Sydney Porter—Wanderings in the Far East



37



opposite sex. One pair of my birds died in the North of China, but I

landed two pairs. One pair I parted with owing to the fact that even in

a large outside aviary the birds fought, and even the pair I retained

lived in such a state of animosity that the cock had to be removed to

save his life. After he was removed the hen seemed to attract all the

cock Bullfinches in the district; some of them sat all day on the roof of

the aviary, so fascinated by the hen’s charms that they appeared to do

without food. As the summer wore on her attraction seemed to wane

and her suitors left, no doubt they recovered from their amorous

intoxication. These are quite the most attractive of the Bullfinches

and deserve to be better known in this country. I found them

exceedingly fond of sweet apple.


In the shop were many Finches of Chinese origin including a very

large and brightly coloured species of the Redpoll, Chinese Greenfinches

and Siskins, Bramblings and Zosterops, many of the very large Black¬

headed Hawfinches, Mandarin Ducks, Painted Quail, etc. There were

several exotics, including a specimen of the very rare Blue-eyed Cockatoo

(Kakatoe ophthalmica) , which was priced at the moderate sum of 24s. ;

there were also Australians, including Sydney Waxbills, Zebra

Finches, etc.


When I asked about live food I was shown little twigs about an

inch long, priced at Id. a hundred, each of which contained a wood

grub, locally known as willow-grubs. These were greatly relished by the

Ruby-throats. What infinite patience must be needed to gather these

grubs ! It would take the average person a week to collect fifty.


In the two other shops were the inevitable Liothrix, Java Sparrows,

a few Zosterops, many Brown Laughing Thrushes or Hwamei, which

are supposed to be very fine songsters, and one poor miserable Chinese

Blue Pie ( TJrocissa erythrorhyncha) in such poor condition as to be almost

unrecognizable. There were also a quantity of Tree Sparrows and

numbers of African Green Singing Finches, which appeared very

popular song birds with the Chinese, for I saw many in cages hanging

outside houses and shops. The few shops in Hong Kong were dark and

evil-smelling places, and the birds were kept under very bad conditions,

in spite of the fact that in nearly all the shops were exquisitely made

cages with very fine china and ivory fittings.



