BIRDS FOR LONDON AVIARIES 



Even the possessor of a town garden can derive 

 much entertainment from an aviary, which need 

 not cost much more to erect than a fowl-house, 

 while the occupants are not unduly expensive. 



The ideal aviary bird is the pretty little 

 Australian budgerigar, or grass parrakeet, so 

 familiar as the "fortune-telling bird" of our 

 street prophetesses. The budgerigar is Mark 

 Tapley in green and yellow feathers ; he can be 

 cheerful in a little cage, with his quills plucked 

 to prevent him absconding when he is brought 

 out to deal destiny at a penny a head, and in 

 an aviary the thought of freedom never seems 

 to enter his mind. 



Instead, given a cocoa-nut husk to nest in, 

 he sets about rearing a family, which feat he 

 accomplishes with such success, that if you put 

 three or four pairs of budgerigars in an aviary 

 in the spring you will find by autumn that there 

 will be so many surplus ones to sell that the 

 price of the original stock will be paid over and 

 over again. 



It is necessary to start with several, for one 



pair of budgerigars are so taken up with "con- 



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