My Birtk. 287 



at King's Hospital — a most incorrigible little scamp, but good- 

 natured in his way — had, after he left the school, gone 

 away to sea, and, somewhere or other, had picked up a Rosy- 

 breasted Cockatoo. This he sent to me as a present, whether 

 with the intention of driving me out of my wits by its con- 

 tinuous screaming, or by its mischievous presence to remind 

 me of some traits in the character of the donor, I know not. 

 At any rate it was not long before its noise and the necessity 

 of daily renewing its perches drove me upon the plan of con- 

 structing an aviary round a tree in the garden for its future 

 residence. Everyone told me, of course, that the bird would 

 not live outside during the winter, and it is probable that I 

 should have taken it inside when the hard w^eather came ; but 

 in October I was seized with a severe attack of typhoid, the 

 school was broken up, and all its inhabitants cleared out until 

 the February following, and in consequence of this the 

 Cockatoo had to take his chance though the winter was a 

 severe one. Being well looked after by one of the men about 

 the place, he not only survived but improved in appearance, 

 despite the hard weather, or probably because of it. Since 

 that time neither he nor any one of my birds has been taken 

 inside, no matter what the weather, though the aviary is totally 

 unheated, and yet they are infinitely superior in health and 

 feather to birds of the same kind carefully attended to in 

 heated aviaries. When I returned, in February, I found that 

 the large tree, around the trunk of which I had constructed 

 the aviary, had narrowly escaped destruction from the perse- 

 vering efforts of the Cockatoo to strip it of its bark. For- 

 tunately one strip of bark had escaped, there being no perch 

 near it, and by at once removing the perches from the tree and 

 encasing it in thin sheet-iron, I succeeded in saving its life. 

 The aviary was easily made, thus^: I planted eight posts 

 around the tree and nailed short pieces in a sloping position 

 from these posts to the tree. This cap I roofed in with wood, 

 and then covered the wood with tarred felt. Next I nailed 

 wire netting, narrow in mesh, all round the posts down to the 

 ground, except between two of the posts where I left an open- 

 ing about three feet high, in which I afterwards placed a door 

 made also of netting attached to the frame. Then, as 

 additional security, as well as for shelter, I boarded over the 

 netting at the base and top for about nine inches. No other 



