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Bird- Lore 



antics we first conceived the idea of a mate for him, so we got ' Zip,' a 

 pretty, motherly-looking bird. 



We kept them in the cage for a few days and then opened the door, 

 when the fun began. Don't tell me birds don't think! Why, Dick took Zip 

 everywhere, into the parlor and out through the hall, on to the sideboard 

 and the dining table, all his favorite places, and last, as a sort of crowning 

 surprise, up on the clock, where he showed her the "other bird " ; but he was 

 completely nonplussed, for, instead of one other bird, there were two. Dick 

 was furious; he ruffled up his feathers and was in for a great fight. Well, 

 they finally went to housekeeping, not in the daintily lined wire nest 

 provided for them in their cage. Ah, no! Dick was not that kind of a bird; 



A SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AVIARY 



but very carefully and laboriously they picked out each thread that we had 

 just as carefully put in, and carried them, together with many choice bits of 

 fringe, etc., to an Indian jar that sat on a high shelf in the sun-room. They 

 raised two families in Indian jars that season, and by the time Dick had 

 shown the brood around, and we had rescued some from behind curtains, 

 others from the backs of pictures, and discovered the whole lot asleep on the 

 clock, we concluded that one bird loose in a house was very unique and 

 interesting, that two birds were a good bit of a nuisance, but that a flock of 

 nine was a calamity. So we decided to build them a house out in the yard, 

 which we did ; an 8 x 8 octagonal affair, that is now used as a jail for unruly 

 members of the colony. The first prisoner was a Baltimore Oriole, sentenced 

 for life for egg-eating. 



