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S. Porter—Wanderings in the Far East



that I really must purchase them just to try to save their lives. I

think they cost with cage and all about 30 cents, or 8Jd. We still had

a long journey to Port Dickson in the state Negri Sembilan, so we

purchased a tin of condensed milk at the nearest native store and,

stopping for lunch at the nearest rest house, procured a tin-opener,

a spoon, some sugar, and cup of hot water, and so saved the lives of

these wretched little creatures. In a day or two they got most of the

stickiness off their plumage, and in time turned into beautiful specimens.

In a few days they were so tame that I could pick them up. This species

(the Orange-bellied Plower-pecker) was very common in the garden in

Johore, and one could usually see them around the blossoms of the

coconut-palms but, unlike the Sunbirds, they never came low down to

visit the flowering shrubs or creepers. Fortunately there were several

young coconut-palms and their sprays of flowers were only about twelve

to fifteen feet from the ground and here it was quite easy to study them.

Under ordinary conditions these birds live only on the tops of the forest

trees, and from such a distance they look more like bees than birds.

The Flower-peckers are easily distinguished from the Sunbirds by their

more melodious call-notes, wdiich are very Finch-like. The call of a

Sunbird is harsh and metallic, and rather like that of a Stonechat. On

the other hand, the song of some Sunbirds is very sweet and sustained,

especially that of the Van Hasselt’s. The Flower-peckers in the garden

were very tame and exceedingly inquisitive ; we used to fix up, by

means of a pulley, a trap-cage by the coconut flowers, and the sight of

it would at once attract these birds, who came around and examined

it with the greatest of interest, even though it contained a Sunbird as

a decoy. If a male Flower-pecker was put in the cage it would almost

immediately attract another who would try his utmost to enter the

cage to fight the captive male. These birds are terribly pugnacious,

much more so than any Sunbird. I once put in a cage temporarily

with a pair of Orange-bellied, a pair of Scarlet-backed ; on my return

in a few minutes I found the cock with both eyes pecked out and the

hen so injured that she died in a short time.


One frequently sees these birds hovering in the manner of Humming

Birds. In colour the male of the Orange-bellied is a slaty blue-black

above, the throat grey, with the breast, lower parts and back bright



