298 



square foot of ground space to each bird in an aviary 

 is not sufficient, for reasons which I have elsewhere 

 fully explained. 



The disinfection of cages which have contained 

 birds affected with septic disease, deserves a word to 

 itself. To wash them in <soap and water, to fumigate 

 them with sulphur, to rinse them with a gallon of water 

 to which an ounce or two of some disinfectant has been 

 added, to lime wash them, and then to expose them to 

 the open air for even twenty months is just so much 

 waste of time, though to be sure my readers do not need 

 to be told this while the earlier part of this chapter is 

 still fresh in their minds. A cage is only really safe 

 when it has been either boiled or burnt, and personally 

 the latter of these is the only course I should pursue. 



In conclusion: — being as it were "behind the 

 scenes," by reason of my experience as a post mortem 

 examiner adopting modern methods of investigation. 

 I am strongly of opinion that the shops of the dealers 

 should be placed under some kind of competent and 

 regular inspection. It would be to their great 

 advantage in the long run, because, to sell as many 

 birds as they do now, they would then need to buy 

 fewer from abroad ; or else if they continued to import 

 at their present rate, they would Vje able to sell more 

 of their wares than they can under existing circum- 

 stances. Even those of us who are indifferent to waste 

 of life are keenly alive to waste of mone\', and I person- 

 ally know of scores of amateurs who have discontinued 

 the keeping of wild birds solely because the majority of 

 their purchases came to them from the dealers in a 

 diseased condition. To them it was but too truly the 

 Story of Bird Death. 



