Reminiscences. io^ 



with other bulHes. an advantage I often availed myself of. I 

 am so pleased with this arrangement that I introduced it wher- 

 ever possible into all my aviaries. 



Now as to the tlight only one word can describe it, and 

 that is bad. Roomy, yes, but having said that you have said 

 all. It was thickly planted and had a nice piece of grass for 

 the birds to revel in, which, by the way, they generally did when 

 they were going to die. To be perpetually cutting the grass 

 disturbs the birds and may even decapitate a nesting Waxbill. 

 Most birds have no use for thick rank grass. A well cut lawn 

 is another matter, but how many of us can afford the room and 

 money to enclose a lawn in our aviaries ? And so my nice 

 little grass-edged pathways and my dear little grass patch for 

 the birds were in plain language a " wash-out." I have by me 

 an indifferent photograph of the aviary as at first constructed, 

 and I am inclined to think if it had been left at that my birds 

 would have prospered better. But the plenty of natural cover 

 fiend had laid me by the heels, and. like Adam, I did take the 

 apple and did eat. My one idea was to plant so thickly as to 

 hide the birds, but they were most unappreciative, and the 

 thicker the cover grew the less they seemed to like it. With 

 one or two rather notable exceptions very few young were 

 fully reared in this aviary. The one brilliant exception was 

 the rearing of young Pekin Robins. A photograph of their 

 nest is here shown. Please don't think they built in a tree 

 growing in a flower pot. The nest was removed with the 

 privet branches (after the young had flown ) to be photographed, 

 and an t^^g, or eggs were obtained from a previous nest, but 

 one which they had deserted. The illustration shows the 

 wonderful way tlie nest was suspended, and although so fragile 

 in appearance never showed any signs of giving way. A sad 

 fate befell the yotmg birds. When I broke up my collection 

 and sold the birds, their new owner fed them on canary seed 

 and then complained that they died soon after he had them. 

 I wonder what he expected they would do while their internal 

 economy underwent the necessary changes to accommodate 

 them to their diet. It reminded one forcibly of the story of 

 the old miser who complained that just as he was training his 



