S. Porter—Wanderings in the Far East



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purchased and many were the times when the car was sadly overladen

with purchases from the bird shops. Once I picked up two apparently

magnificent Argus Pheasants, both crowded into a Malayan fowl

basket in which they had been for some days, with only rice to eat,

which had been thrown on to the bottom of the basket, and had by

this time been trodden into the droppings. Their wonderful wing and

tail feathers had been sadly broken by being confined in such a cramped

space. On getting them out to Johore one bird was found to be

desperately ill. I thought it had pneumonia : its eyes were shut and it

gasped for breath making in the meantime an awful noise like a man

dying from pneumonia. A native servant who said that he knew some¬

thing about birds administered a mixture of chopped garlic and oil

which was forced down the bird’s throat. The noise of its breathing

kept me awake most of the night and I kept getting up every hour

or so to see how it was getting on. In the morning it was not dead as

I expected. It seemed to revive and the next day we placed it in an

outdoor aviary with its companion. At the end of a week it seemed

much improved, but, alas, after a couple of weeks I lost both birds.

I had left them to the Chinese servant who was supposed to know all

about their feeding. I felt rather a guilty conscience about this for

had I attended to them myself as I did to all my other birds and fed

them upon all manner of fruits, insects, nuts, and greenfood, I might

have been able to save them. However I heard afterwards that they

were ailing birds from a well-known dealer who had sent them to the

bird shops to be disposed of at a cheap price knowing that they would

ultimately die. This dealer seemed to have a monopoly of all the

pheasants imported into Singapore and unless one went to him, one

either got none at all or sick and ailing birds.


I afterwards purchased six splendid birds from the dealer, three

hens and three cocks. These I looked after myself, feeding them on,

besides grain, all manner of fruit such as cut-up banana, pawpaw,

apples, soaked raisins, peanuts, and grapes, of which they are extremely

fond. In fact I find most Pheasants relish grapes, especially if they

are cut up.


Argus pheasants are not particularly expensive to buy in Singapore,

but the cost of bringing these birds home is very high. First of all huge



