5S



a nervous Piecl Gralliua (Grallina picata ), a new arrival, had

given it a casual peck. Taking warning by the Grey Singing-

finch, I kept the Bunting in the hospital for a longer time, and

placed it for a while in a flight cage before returning it to the

aviary. At the present time it is absolutely impossible to detect

the slightest trace of injury to the wing, or to say which bird (of

course I personally know the bird) was injured or which wing

was broken. It still is, as it previously had been, much the

better and the more active bird of the two. The mend seems

to be perfect.


I mention these details with the view of helping our

younger friends, and encouraging them to do their best for their

feathered captives, and not unnecessarily to take away their poor

little lives just in order to save trouble,—not but that I must

fully admit that a broken limb, especially a leg, is often a very

wearisome business to attend to.



CORRESPONDENCE.



AVIARY FOR WEAVERS.


Sir, —It is a great pleasure to hear that a member of the Avicultural

Society has as much as 60 by 24 feet space at his disposal, and proposes to

devote this to an aviary for Weavers.


Great tilings can be done with such an aviary. But if adequately

stocked with hundreds of birds, many battles and much bloodshed and

murder would result in the breeding season. To avoid this and to obtain

success in breeding, divisions are necessary. If an aviary of 60 feet long is

divided into three, four, or five compartments of 20, 15, or 12 feet in length

each, very much more breeding will be accomplished than if the same

number of birds are free to quarrel in one huge space.


Another point to consider is that, in an aviary 24 feet deep the birds

would become shy and wild. They would, on the approach of an observer,

retire to the farther perches, trees, or shrubs, and at something like 20 feet

distance it becomes difficult to watch a bird’s life and habits ; whilst foreign

birds soon become used to being looked at more closely when housed in

compartments of less depth, allowing of better observation.


If I had such a space for an aviary, I should carry a corridor through

the middle of it, and cut up the 24 feet depth into compartments of 8 feet

in depth, allow 5 or 6 feet for a corridor, and the remaining 10 or 11 feet as

maximum depth.


As regards height, I do not quite share the opinion of my very

esteemed friend, Dr. A. G. Butler, that about 10 feet should be the maximum.

In writing “ I should not recommend that the aviary be more than 10 feet

high : it is difficult to catch birds in very lofty aviaries.”—Dr. Butler

probably thought of the necessity of catching with a net weakly, or

damaged, or quarrelsome individuals. With a net it is of course difficult to

catch any bird in an aviary higher than 10 feet. But is it necessary to use

a net at all ?



