38 PONDS, PADDOCKS, AND AVIARIES 



the barbed wire top towards the outside, so as to throw 

 back any marauding climber. 



The great glory of this large enclosure was the 

 collection of cranes, for such a collection had almost 

 certainly never been got together before. Also in this 

 paddock were the pelicans. The water was divided into 

 two areas by a grass-covered causeway which ran across 

 it, and was a great sunning-place for the ducks. 



At the sides of this enclosure were aviaries which 

 held several varieties of partridge and francolin, and 

 others in which lived a wild cat and the large dormice. 



So much for the general situation of the birds' 

 homes. We will now visit the collection itself under the 

 only possible guide ; for no memory of visits to Lilford 

 stands out like that of the gentle master of all ' our 

 show ' (as he used to call it), wheeled about among his 

 birds. Here one day he halted to point out, and very 

 cautiously, a willow wren's nest in a thick shrub on the 

 lawn, built most unusually at a height above the ground. 

 Presently he called attention to a dark hole where the 

 apteryx was hidden with her egg ; and soon he was 

 nursing in his arms another apteryx, which had been taken 

 from its hiding-place; for this bird is so strictly nocturnal 

 that you would never see it at all were you not some- 

 times to extract it from its chosen haunt. 



The following account of the Lilford collection was 

 given by Lord Lilford, as his Presidential Address, on 



