South African Birds In a comment on the immense consignment
of South African birds just brought to England, it is suggested that the Secretary Bird, that valiant slayer of snakes and rats, is usually silent. I once spent ten days in the neighbourhood of a captive Secretary Bird and it howled like a Dervish at any hour of every day. It is also said to roar like a lion in the bush, but I should rather compare it to a human screech. The art of trans- porting birds has been greatly bettered of late ; and the mortality among these several thousand was, I believe, small. Their fate was very different from that of the thousands of brightly coloured finches that used to be netted in the low bushes of North Australia for the Sydney Zoo. Half the secret in keeping small birds fit and happy in captivity is plenty of light as well as warmth. Perhaps this latest addition to the birds of the Zoo will finally kill the silly belief that South African birds have no song. Apart from that very common shrike, which sings a duet with his wife at all sorts of seasons, they are not such good musicians as our birds, or the South American, but the sweet notes are plenty.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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