E. G. B. Meade-Waldo — Aviculture and Wild Bird Protection 155



ones are dull blue washed with black. Below, from face to belly, they

are a lovely purple- or reddish-mauve, and the eyebrow is marked with

a slight tiiige of the same colour ; the lower belly, the inner webs of the

under surface of the wing-feathers, and the under tail-coverts are pale

blue. Bill, yellow ; legs, greenish-brown. Length, 10 inches.


Note . — H.L. =Tlie British Museum Hand-List of Birds, 1899-1909.



AVICULTURE AND WILD BIRD PROTECTION


By E. G. B. Meade-Waldo, M.A., F.L.S., M.B.O.U.


Aviculture and bird protection are closely connected, and there is

no more delightful form of aviculture than the encouragement and

study of bird-life in one’s gardens and surroundings. By observing

the habits and necessities of species in a wild state the possessor of

kindred species or genera should be able to keep the captives in health

by noticing and recording such things as the changes of foods according

to the seasons of the year. That seed-eating birds, for example, can

only get ripe seed during a portion of the year ; that fruit-eaters can

only procure ripe fruit during a comparatively short time ; that almost

all insect-eaters require fruit at some period of their summer life.

Also with regard to nesting, the kind of site most suitable and the

necessary materials to be supplied for nest-building ; whether or no

a species requires a very retired situation, removed from its own and

other species, or is comparatively indifferent; at what period the

parents change the food given to the young, and to what it is changed.

These and many more important or necessary facts in aviculture can

be found out by careful observation of the wild birds that frequent

our gardens and immediate surroundings.


The length of life to which wild birds attain is very hard to

estimate, and I should be inclined to think that well-kept birds

in confinement certainly live longer than birds in a wild state,

quite apart from the numerous accidents that the latter are always

liable to. It is difficult as a rule to be certain that a wild

bird, unless identified by some peculiarity, is always the same

individual, A Turtle Dove with a stiff leg used to appear about the



