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only one. All three young ones are now flying about 

 the aviaries and feeding themselves. 



I have five aviaries in my garden, which I can, by 

 opening the doors of communication, make into one. 

 The Budgerigars (the largest birds I keep) had two of 

 the aviaries to themselves. The rest of the birds (of 

 which I have about seventy) were in occupation of the 

 other three. In the middle of the summer I found I 

 could not spare the time to attend to the birds 

 properly while in separate aviaries, so I opened the 

 doors and let them all fly together, and to my surprise 

 one pair of the Avadavats went into the Budgerigars 

 aviar3^ took possession of one of the cocoanut husks, 

 and there reared their two 3'oung ones. The other 

 pair built their nest in one of the small travelling 

 cages in their own aviary. The pair that built in the 

 Budgerigar's aviary have again gone to nest in the 

 same place and at the present time (September loth) 

 have three eggs. I was a little doubtful at first as to 

 whether I should be able to rear the young, as I always 

 understood the}^ required live insects, and were con- 

 sequently ver}^ difficult to rear — for when I succeeded 

 in getting live insects, they were soon eaten up, there 

 being so many birds in the aviary to share them. I had 

 one of those balloon fly catchers in my kitchen, and 

 every morning I used to put it in the oven, for just long 

 enough to suffocate the flies that were in it, and then 

 I threw them into the aviary. That was the only thing 

 I gave them different from their ordinary food. I 

 always keep sponge cake in my aviary, but I never 

 use egg food, for I am always afraid of their picking 

 up a piece that has gone sour, which it is very 

 likely to do in hot weather. I have never seen the 

 avadavats eat any sponge cake, but they did eat the 

 flies. 



Since writing the above, I find that the pair which 



