STRANGE FREIGHT

Hokitika Guardian, 28 January 1932, Page 2

STRANGE FREIGHT

SHIP’S CARPENTER’S CHARGE. GAILY COLOURED BIRDS. WELLINGTON, January 26. Ships bring strange cargoes now and again, but few cargoes are as picturesque ns the gay toucans, macaws and blue jays that arrived in Wellington on the Reniuera. They were housed in. cages placed on top of one another aft of the after hatch, and although dusk was falling as the ship lay at the wharf, the colours of the plumage could just lie seen. The ship’s carpenter, a man of few words, was apparently putting the birds io bod. They have come a,s freight from the Canal Zone and are destined for the Avicultural Society, Auckland. The ship’s carpenter is the man who lias looked after the birds on an© voyage and is apparently the only one on the ship who knows their number and habits. “Six toucans,” he said, adjusting a scrim covering, and the dim outline of the toucan, with an oddlv-shaped beak, could be seen inside. “Two macaws and four blue jays” were in the next cages. Fur' tlier along still were two smaller birds, also froth the Canal Zone. Not verbally froth the carpenter, but by following hini irttri his Workshop, one learned that the toucans Arid liiaeaws were not the only birds cm board. Among the tools and mi a corner of the worksbip were other cages, containing scores of smaller birds from England, chirping and fluttering, a busy colony. These were blue trts, waxfails, weavers, linnets, and others, in great number and extremely livply. They were destined for Auckland also.

The carpenter would say little about the birds and their habits. He is manifestly a man who knows how to deal with them and treat them. The toucans, macaws and bine jays

have had an exotic diet of bananas and oranges, with a mystical food, “poa poa,” which the carpenter said was '"'like a big pumpkin.” On the present trip there are 20 birds all told. He has brought birds out before, including a batch of 400 on one occasion. “I had nightingales once,” he said, with a note of pride. Evidently lie and the birds get along well together.