147 



the constant bath. Many people are under the im- 

 pression that the fact of the aviary being out of doors 

 does away with the need of its being frequently 

 cleaned. It is not so however. My aim has been to 

 shew the importance of fresh, i.e. pure air. Of what 

 avail therefore is it that our aviary is out of doors if it 

 is allowed to get into such a condition that the air in 

 it is alive with septic germs, as evidenced to our 

 senses by the smell of putrid excreta and decaying 

 food refuse? Of what use is it even that the birds 

 breathe pure air at the top of a wire flight if they 

 pick about on a filthy floor at the bottom ? Better 

 indeed a clean cage indoors than this state of things 

 outside. 



Especially in damp or rainy weather should care 

 be taken to keep everything sweet and clean, for then 

 the food and water are more prone to contamination 

 with excreta than in the hot and dry atmosphere of 

 summer. With all one's care and ingenuity in the 

 arrangement of internal fittings birds cannot be pre- 

 vented from scattering their food about on the floor 

 and shelves, and they seem to delight in picking it up 

 afterwards. In this they only follow their ancestral 

 habits of foraging for more or less isolated morsels, 

 but the effect on them is different when these habits 

 are transferred from the open and uncontaminated 

 spaces to which they are accustomed in a life of 

 freedom to the narrow and overcrowded limits of an 

 aviary floor, where there is necessaril}' a concentration 

 of such agencies as inevitably work evil on the animal 

 organism. 



The floor therefore should be kept covered with 

 coarse sand, as I have said before, to a depth of about 

 two inches ; and this sand should have the top care- 

 fully scraped off" with a hoe at longer or shorter 

 intervals according to the state of the weather and 

 the number of birds kept. All seed hoppers, nest 



