Practical Bird-Keeping .— Correspondence. 283


food should be cut up into little bits as they are not very good at

tearing their prey to pieces, and I have found it best to cut open

Sparrows and mice. They are passionately fond of mealworms,

and when flying about a room will take them from the fingers

while hardly pausing in their flight, in fact, the Scops is one of

the most delightful bird-pets imaginable. Several of these small

Owls, however, are rather delicate and require a little artificial

heat in winter.


I am afraid I have already exceeded my legitimate space,

but I can heartily recommend any of the birds of prey as most

delightful pets ; with few exceptions ( e.g. the Harriers) they

will become exceedingly tame, and as they have only to be fed

once a day they are essentially birds which one can feed oneself

and thus get into personal touch with them in a manner not so

easy with smaller species, whose food is always at hand. How¬

ever tame they get, it is always as well to remember that they

have sharp claws, and as when thoroughly tame they often

“strike’ in play, it is best to wear thick gloves when handling

them.



PRACTICAL BIRD-KEEPING.—CORRESPONDENCE.



WINTERING BIRDS IN OUTDOOR AVIARIES.


Sir, —You have asked members to write and say what birds have

wintered successfully in their garden aviaries.


My aviary consists of an open wired flight and a strong wooden house.

The windows face south and the door west ; during the winter this door

is closed, and the birds gain entrance to the flight by means of a small

square hole quite near the floor level, fitted with a sliding door, and put in

that position for the convenience of Quails which I kept some time ago.


The long side of the open flight faces south, the east is sheltered by

the bird-house, the north is boarded, and the west is sheltered by a hedge.

It sounds as if it were a very good position, but the soil is heavy and cold,

and as the garden slopes gradually down to the aviary, the mists and frost

seem much more severe there than in the upper part of the garden. The

house is without any heating arrangement, and this winter the water-pan

inside was thickly frozen during the hard frosts after Christmas.


Only a few birds spent the winter there. A pair of nesting Sibias

thinned them out sadly in the summer before I quite realised what was



