IHotes oil IboueiiiG ant> Ibvgiene.^ 



By \V. Geo. Creswet.!., M.D. Durh., L.R.C.P., F.Z.S. 



HEN I first began to breed Canaries I was 



I I I disagreeabh^ impressed by their general 

 V-^^ want of stamina and especially by their 

 susceplibilit}^ to bronchial catarrh. Nearly 

 ever}' bird I bonght, from whatever source it came, 

 seemed to be everlastingly catching cold, although 

 as befitted a medical man I was fully alive to the 

 advantages of freedom from draughts and of equability 

 of temperature of a moderate degree. In addition to 

 this tendency to disease I was greatly troubled with 

 hens that were altogether barren ; hens which laid only 

 a couple of eggs during the season ; and those which, 

 after laying their full complement all right, either did 

 not sit at all, or else, having properly incubated the 

 eggs to the point of hatching the young, did not 

 trouble about the rearing of them. At that time I 

 was the possessor of a solitar}' garden aviary of a very 

 open and exposed character, which I had put up for a 

 few British birds ; so having satisfied myself that my 

 misfortunes had not been caused b\'' any insect pest, 

 in sheer disgust I turned out all the unsatisfactory 

 hens into this aviary at the end of the breeding season 

 to take their luck. The photographs from which these 

 pages are illustrated plainly shew how little protection 

 from the weather either this aviary or an}' of those 

 more recently built afford the inmates, each compart- 

 ment consistins: as it does of only a covered or 



Some portion of this paper has previously appeared in 

 The Fcatliered World. 



