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Another appeal for articles.



to put up at a famous cabaret in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, called the “ Boule

Blanche,” and all Parisian fanciers of that period used to rush there to pick up

bargains and criticise the birds. The former used to have a very polite reception,

but the latter were apparently not always welcomed.


I must tender my very best thanks to my correspondent.


W. E. Teschemaker.


BED-THROATED TREE PARTRIDGES.


Dear Sir, —Some members of the Avicultural Society may be interested to

hear that the survivor of my Red-throated Tree Partridges (Arboricola rufigularis)

died on February 2nd.


I got the birds from India nearly nine years ago, and when imported they

were fully adult, so this bird has had a long life.


About their limited nesting operations I wrote to the Magazine some years

ago, and would now only add that these Tree Partridges are quite as easy to keep

as any other kinds I have had, and are amongst the most interesting of birds.


They are great nesters, and the bird that died the other day—although

alone—nested and laid every year. Yours faithfully,


Woodlands, Retford. C. Barnly Smith.



AN EFFICACIOUS MOUSE-TRAP.


I am sending a very humble but useful suggestion for mouse-traps which I

have found most excellent in my aviaries, and into which no birds, whether flying or

ground ones, can get in. I find mice such scourges, besides being very wasteful,

especially in these bad times.


Take a fairly substantial wooden box and cut in each of the four sides

a small hole an inch square, for this is not large enough for any birds to get

in, but amply so for mice, which run into the dark on every occasion.


Place this box upside down with the holes on the level of the ground,

having previously set four traps to go under it.


Use metal break-back traps of the common type, for these are preferable

to the wooden ones, as the mice gnaw the latter.


Use butter or lard smeared on the spring-wires, not lumps of cheese, which

the mice can carry off without springing the traps. If the wire is smeared with

the bait mentioned, they cannot do this, and are more certain to spring the traps.

We often catch twenty-nine or thirty mice a night in this way. The box which

covers the traps is about a foot square.


Hartwell House, Aylesbury. Mabel A. Lee.



ANOTHER APPEAL FOR ARTICLES.


The Editor greatly regrets to inform members that he has

touched bed-rock in the matter of “ copy ” for the Magazine, and

although he is fully aware of the extreme difficulty of supplying any

nowadays, he asks members to do their utmost to uphold the

Magazine.



