34 FEATHERED FRIENDS. 



but rather put the mischief down to the account of a 

 certain pert cock Saffron Sparrow who, with his mate, 

 had a nest and young ones inside, for he did not bear 

 the best of characters, though I must confess I had 

 never detected him in any overt act of malicious moles- 

 tation of his neighbours, at whose hands, or bills rather, 

 as I afterwards discovered, he had himself been more 

 than once a sufferer. 



That year my success in breeding foreign birds had 

 to be written down ;#7; even a sedate pair of Cock- 

 ateels I had kept for a number of years in the aviary 

 did not produce a single yo'jng one, though numerous 

 eggs were laid in the box inhabited by them, and in 

 which on former occasions they had reared a numerous 

 family, or, as I should say, a succession of families. 



I put my bad luck down to the mice, which certainly 

 infested the place: but although they were undoubtedly 

 guilty of many small peccadilloes, in this connection 

 they would appear to have been blameless. 



Summer passed, and autumn arrived in due course 

 and departed without any change in the condition of 

 affairs in the aviary, and then a severe winter set in 

 somewhat prematurely. The first really cold night 

 killed several of my poor Waxbills, whereupon I captured 

 the survivors as well as the Whydah Birds and took 

 them indoors, leaving the rest of the colony where they 

 had spent the summer and not a few of them the previous 

 winter, and there they appeared to be quite comfortable 



