PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. 47 



the open air — and this is indeed very beneficial — it must be 

 gone about with the greatest prudence. In the first place, the 

 weather must be warm and calm, and then a place must be 

 chosen where the bird will be protected from currents of air as well 

 as from the direct glowing rays of the sun. Moreover, night air 

 and fog must be avoided. Often enough a bird falls ill with 

 influenza or inflammation of the throat and lungs without the 

 cause being in any way apparent. Then assuredly a cold 

 draught has. caught it, which has probably rushed in from an 

 adjoining room when the door was opened, or which pours in 

 through some unnoticed chink in the door or window, and blows 

 straight to the spot where the cage stands. It has not been 

 observed that the opening and shutting of every door produces 

 a draught which often, at a considerable distance and quite 

 unexpectedly, does much harm. Therefore the situation of the 

 parrot's cage or stand in the room must be chosen with great 

 care. 



Parrots, like all cage birds, suffer most in the morning, while 

 the sitting room is being cleaned, when they are exposed, not 

 only to draughts, but to damp dusty air and rapid changes of 

 temperature, when icy cold air streams in, and the bird is not 

 sufficiently protected. Covering the cage even with a very 

 thick cloth is not sufficient ; the cage should always be taken, 

 while the room is being cleaned, into another room of equal 

 temperature. A cold, much more severe than one could 

 suppose, and, from that cause, all the more mischievous, is often 

 produced by some one coming out of the open air, or even from 

 a cold room, and going at once close to the cage, as one is apt 

 to do, without thinking, when giving food. If the parrot 

 becomes in this way suddenly and seriously ill without any 

 apparent cause, it is put down to the ''delicacy of such birds," 

 without considering that such would not be the case if it 

 received proper treatment and were reasonably accustomed to 

 circumstances. 



Too great heat has a most injurious influence, especially in a 

 badly-ventilated room, whereas most parrots can bear a low 

 temperature, even as low as 21deg. Fahr., if rapid variations be 

 guarded against. The best temperature for all birds is that of 

 an ordinary sitting-room, about 65deg. Fahr. 



Many who keep a parrot hang a cloth round the cage of theii 

 favourite daring the night. It is well to do so in the case of 

 newly-imported, and consequently unacclimatised, birds, or with 



