BIRDS. 



ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. 



VOL. III. 



APRIL, 1898. 



No. 4. 



AVIARIES. 



N admirer of birds recently 

 said to us : "Much is said 

 of the brilliant specimens 

 which you have pre- 

 sented in your magazine, 

 but I confess that they have not been 

 the most attractive to me. Many birds 

 of no special beauty of plumage seem 

 to me far more interesting than those 

 which have little more than bright 

 colors and a pretty song to recommend 

 them to the observer." He did not 

 particularize, but a little reflection 

 will readily account for the justness 

 of his opinion. Many plain birds have 

 characteristics which indicate consider- 

 able intelligence, and may be watched 

 and studied with continued and increas- 

 ing interest. To get sufficiently near 

 to them in their native haunts for this 

 purpose is seldom practicable, hence 

 the limited knowledge of individual 

 naturalists, who are often mere gener- 

 alizers, and the necessity of the accum- 

 ulated knowledge of many patient 

 students. In an aviary of sufficient 

 size, in which there is little or no 

 interference with the natural habits of 

 the birds, a vast number of interesting 

 facts may be obtained, and the birds 

 themselves suffer no harm, but are 

 rather protected from it. Such an 

 aviary is that of Mr. J. W. Sefton, of 

 San Diego, California. In a recent 

 letter Mrs. Sefton pleasantly writes of 

 it for the benefit of readers of BIRDS. 

 She says : 



"My aviary is out in the grounds of 

 our home. It is built almost entirely 

 of wire, protected only on the north 

 and west by an open shed, under which 

 the birds sleep, build their nests and 

 gather during the rains which we 



occasionally have throughout the 

 winter months. The building is forty 

 feet long, twenty feet wide, and at the 

 center of the arch is seventeen feet 

 high. Running water trickles over 

 rocks, affording the birds the oppor- 

 tunity of bathing as they desire. 

 There are forty-seven varieties of birds 

 and about four hundred specimens. 

 The varieties include a great many 

 whose pictures have appeared in 

 BIRDS : Quail, Partridge, Doves, Sky- 

 larks, Starlings, Bobolinks, Robins, 

 Blackbirds, Buntings, Grosbeaks, Blue 

 Mountain Lory, Cockateel, Rosellas, 

 Grass Parrakeet, Java Sparrows, Canar- 

 ies, Nonpariels, Nightingales, Cardi- 

 nals of North and South America, and 

 a large number of rare foreign Finches, 

 indeed nearly every country of the world 

 has a representative in the aviary. 



"We have hollow trees in which the 

 birds of the Parrot family set up house- 

 keeping. They lay their eggs on the 

 bottom of the hole, make no pretention 

 of building a nest, and sit three weeks. 

 The young birds are nearly as large as 

 the parents, and are fully feathered 

 and colored when they crawl out of 

 the home nest. We have been very 

 successful, raising two broods of Cock- 

 ateel and one of Rosellas last season. 

 They lay from four to six round white 

 eggs. We have a number of Bob 

 White and California Quail. Last 

 season one pair of Bob Whites decided 

 to go to housekeeping in some brush 

 in a corner, and the hen laid twenty- 

 three eggs, while another pair made 

 their nest in the opposite corner and 

 the hen laid nine eggs. After sitting 

 two weeks the hen with the nine eggs 

 abandoned her nest, when the male 



