Parrots are as gladly, or more gladly, got rid of, in any manner, in different regions in the continents of Asia and America, than with us are even rats from a granary. Dr. Stanley, after speaking of the beauty of a flight of parrots, says:—“The husbandman who sees them hastening through the air, with loud and impatient screams, looks upon them with dismay and detestation, knowing that the produce of his labour and industry is in jeopardy, when visited by such a voracious multitude of pilferers, who, like the locusts of Egypt, desolate whole tracts of country by their unsparing ravages.” A contrast with their harmlessness, in a gilded cage in the houses of the wealthy, with us! The destructiveness of these birds, is then, one reason why seamen can obtain them so readily and cheaply, for the natives take pleasure in catching them; while as to plentifulness, the tropical regions teem with bird, as with insect and reptile, life.
Of parrots, paroquets, and cockatoos, there are 3000 imported to London in the way I have described, and in about equal proportions. They are sold, wholesale, from 5s. to 30s. each.
There are now only three men selling these brilliant birds regularly in the streets, and in the fair way of trade; but there are sometimes as many as 18 so engaged. The price given by a hawker for a cockatoo, &c., is 8s. or 10s., and they are retailed at from 15s. to 30s., or more, “if it can be got.” The purchasers are the wealthier classes who can afford to indulge their tastes. Of late years, however, I am told, a parrot or a cockatoo seems to be considered indispensable to an inn (not a gin-palace), and the innkeepers have been among the best customers of the street parrot-sellers. In the neighbourhood of the docks, and indeed along the whole river side below London-bridge, it is almost impossible for a street-seller to dispose of a parrot to an innkeeper, or indeed to any one, as they are supplied by the seamen. A parrot which has been taught to talk is worth from 4l. to 10l., according to its proficiency in speech. About 500 of these birds are sold yearly by the street-hawkers, at an outlay to the public of from 500l. to 600l.
Java sparrows, from the East Indies, and from the Islands of the Archipelago, are brought to London, but considerable quantities die during the voyage and in this country; for, though hardy enough, not more than one in three survives being “taken off the paddy seed.” About 10,000, however, are sold annually, in London, at 1s. 6d. each, but a very small proportion by street-hawking, as the Java sparrows are chiefly in demand for the aviaries of the rich in town and country. In some years not above 100 may be sold in the streets; in others, as many as 500.
In St. Helena birds, known also as wax-bills and red-backs, there is a trade to the same extent, both as regards number and price; but the street-sale is perhaps 10 per cent. lower.
Of the Street-Sellers of Birds’-Nests.
The young gypsy-looking lad, who gave me the following account of the sale of birds’-nests in the streets, was peculiarly picturesque in his appearance. He wore a dirty-looking smock-frock with large pockets at the side; he had no shirt; and his long black hair hung in curls about him, contrasting strongly with his bare white neck and chest. The broad-brimmed brown Italian-looking hat, broken in and ragged at the top, threw a dark half-mask-like shadow over the upper part of his face. His feet were bare and black with mud: he carried in one hand his basket of nests, dotted with their many-coloured eggs; in the other he held a live snake, that writhed and twisted as its metallic-looking skin glistened in the sun; now over, and now round, the thick knotty bough of a tree that he used for a stick. The portrait of the youth is here given. I have never seen so picturesque a specimen of the English nomads. He said, in answer to my inquiries:—
“I am a seller of birds’-nesties, snakes, slow-worms, adders, ‘effets’—lizards is their common name—hedgehogs (for killing black beetles); frogs (for the French—they eats ’em); snails (for birds); that’s all I sell in the summer-time. In the winter I get all kinds of wild flowers and roots, primroses, ‘butter-cups’ and daisies, and snow-drops, and ‘backing’ off of trees; (‘backing’ it’s called, because it’s used to put at the back of nosegays, it’s got off the yew trees, and is the green yew fern). I gather bulrushes in the summer-time, besides what I told you; some buys bulrushes for stuffing; they’re the fairy rushes the small ones, and the big ones is bulrushes. The small ones is used for ‘stuffing,’ that is, for showing off the birds as is stuffed, and make ’em seem as if they was alive in their cases, and among the rushes; I sell them to the bird-stuffers at 1d. a dozen. The big rushes the boys buys to play with and beat one another—on a Sunday evening mostly. The birds’-nesties I get from 1d. to 3d. a-piece for. I never have young birds, I can never sell ’em; you see the young things generally dies of the cramp before you can get rid of them. I sell the birds’-nesties in the streets; the threepenny ones has six eggs, a half-penny a egg. The linnets has mostly four eggs, they’re 4d. the nest; they’re for putting under canaries, and being hatched by them. The thrushes has from four to five—five is the most; they’re 2d.; they’re merely for cur’osity—glass cases or anything like that. Moor-hens, wot build on the moors, has from eight to nine eggs, and is 1d. a-piece; they’re for hatching underneath a bantam-fowl, the same as partridges. Chaffinches has five eggs; they’re 3d., and is for cur’osity. Hedge-sparrows, five eggs; they’re the same price as the other, and is for cur’osity. The Bottletit—the nest and the bough are always put in glass cases; it’s a long hanging nest, like a bottle, with a hole about as big as a sixpence, and there’s mostly as many as eighteen eggs; they’ve been known to lay thirty-three. To the house-sparrow there is five eggs; they’re 1d. The yellow-hammers, with five eggs, is 2d. The water-wagtails, with four eggs, 2d. Blackbirds, with five eggs, 2d. The golden-crest wren, with ten eggs—it has a very handsome nest—is 6d. Bulfinches, four eggs, 1s.; they’re for hatching, and the bulfinch is a very dear bird. Crows, four eggs, 4d. Magpies, four eggs, 4d. Starlings, five eggs, 3d. The egg-chats, five eggs, 2d. Goldfinches, five eggs, 6d., for hatching. Martins, five eggs, 3d. The swallow, four eggs, 6d.; it’s so dear because the nest is such a cur’osity, they build up again the house. The butcher-birds—hedge-murderers some calls them, for the number of birds they kills—five eggs, 3d. The cuckoo—they never has a nest, but lays in the hedge-sparrow’s; there’s only one egg (it’s very rare you see the two, they has been got, but that’s seldom) that is 4d., the egg is such a cur’osity. The greenfinches has four or five eggs, and is 3d. The sparrer-hawk has four eggs, and they’re 6d. The reed-sparrow—they builds in the reeds close where the bulrushes grow; they has four eggs, and is 2d. The wood-pigeon has two eggs, and they’re 4d. The horned owl, four eggs; they’re 6d. The woodpecker—I never see no more nor two—they’re 6d. the two; they’re a great cur’osity, very seldom found. The kingfishers has four eggs, and is 6d. That’s all I know of.
