105



The temperature I keep up to between 50 and 60 degrees

Fahr. by means of an oil lamp stove, which is easily turned on

and off; and, however cold it is outside, I always open the

windows for a few minutes in the mornings to change the air.


The losses by egg-binding of numbers of hen birds is

distressing, but I have saved a great many lives by administering

weak whiskey and water, and putting the sufferer in a small

cage in front of the fire, which treatment generally results in the

production of a soft egg; and the bird after a few hours is able to

fly about in the bird room again.


The preponderance of males is also a detriment in the

bird room, and therefore I have removed half-a-dozen gentlemen

to another cage, and am in hopes of again rearing some young

birds.


I am also indebted to Mr. Wiener for some of the Setaria

glauca, which the birds devour with avidity, and which I keep as

a bo?ine bouche for them on rare occasions until I can obtain a

supply, which I should be glad to do from any source.



REVIEW.


“ My Birds in freedom and captivity," by the Rev. Hubert D.


Astley. — J. M. Dent & Co., Aldine Ho 7 ise, 29 & 30, Bedford


Street, W. C.


We have been favoured with a copy of this charming book,

sumptuously got up. It’s author, who is, fortunately for him¬

self and his readers, also its illustrator, is a Member of the

Council of the Avicultural Society.


The title is a correct one, for Mr. Astley, who evidently

loves birds for their interesting characteristics and not merely

for their rarity, writes sketchily of many tribes both British and

foreign—alike in freedom and captivity—which he has watched,

or studied, or kept in garden or aviary. It is impossible to give

any list of all the birds which in his fifteen chapters he describes.

Among them Hoopoes, Blue Thrushes, Rock Thrushes, Night¬

ingales, the Indian Shama, the Dliyal bird, and Virginian Night¬

ingales have a place ; his account of a pair of the latter, which

escaped from his aviary and nested in freedom in the garden is

most interesting, probably a unique experience in England.

Ring Ousels too, Water Ousels, Wrens and Titmice, Sea and Shore

birds, Parrots and Parrakeets are among the miscellaneous species

sketched lightly with pen and pencil. Some of the illustrations,

reproduced in photogravure, are extraordinarily life-like, far



