SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT. 133 



Occasionally when an ailing bird is introduced in the flying 

 cage, it is killed by the other inmates, but in every such case it has 

 been found that the murdered bird was afflicted with some un- 

 discovered disease, sometimes contagious, and therefore its death 

 was a benefit, rather than a loss. Thus, not infrequently, unavoid- 

 able mistakes have been corrected by the birds themselves. In 

 the great majority of the cases wherein a drooping bird is placed 

 with the others, the newcomer continues to droop until some resi- 

 dent individual finds the stranger in its way, when a sound peck 

 administered on its back gives a hint to move on. The bird either 

 does so or resents the blow, when a little harmless sparring takes 

 place. Usually in a wonderfully short time the new inmate is 

 flying around, feeding and bathing with the others, and in less 

 than a week is fit to take up its life in its own cage. 



In such cases as the above recovery is not diflicult to under- 

 stand, but in others it is, as yet, inexplicable. In other cages a 

 number of valuable birds have been lost from the ravages of a 

 parasitic mite beneath the skin of the breast, which increases in 

 number until thousands are sometimes found in one bird. In 

 some unknown way, before the successful eradication of this pest 

 was worked out, it spread from cage to cage and even across the 

 Bird House, but yet not one death from this cause has occurred 

 in the sanitarium. 



Deaths from conflicts between residents of the large cage are 

 very infrequent, many times fewer than in the cages where four 

 or five individuals of the same species are confined. No matter 

 how bitter may be the feeling against an individual bird, give it 

 room to escape by running or flying, and the animosity is soon 

 forgotten. In a small cage, however, where it is continually in 

 sight of the bullying bird, if not removed speedily, its death is 

 merely a matter of a few days. 



The " sanitarium " appears to exert a salutary effect on the 

 minds as well as the bodies of its patients. In their own cage the 

 American egrets fought until three of their number were hardly 

 able to rise from the ground. All were at once transferred to the 

 flying cage, where the wounded birds soon recovered, and, al- 

 though all have been allowed to remain, not an egretine voice has 

 been heard raised in anger since that day. 



Referring to the matter of indiscriminate feeding, it has seemed 

 that the occasional nibble which the tree-ducks take at the her- 



