When I returned home, in 1862, I was so fortunate as to find two adult males of this species in Singapore; and as they seemed healthy, and fed voraciously on rice, bananas, and cockroaches, I determined on giving the very high price asked for them--L100 .-- and to bring them to England by the overland route under my own care.

On my way home I stayed a week at Bombay, to break the journey, and to lay in a fresh stock of bananas for my birds.

I had great difficulty, however, in supplying them with insect food, for in the Peninsular and Oriental steamers cockroaches were scarce, and it was only by setting traps in the store-rooms, and by hunting an hour every night in the forecastle, that I could secure a few dozen of these creatures,--scarcely enough for a single meal.

At Malta, where I stayed a fortnight, I got plenty of cockroaches from a bake-house, and when I left, took with me several biscuit-tins' full, as provision for the voyage home.

We came through the Mediterranean in March, with a very cold wind; and the only place on board the mail-steamer where their large cage could be accommodated was exposed to a strong current of air down a hatchway which stood open day and night, yet the birds never seemed to feel the cold.