FORMATION OF PENS AND AVIARIES. 59 
liberty accorded them, the pens are completely denuded of their contents. The 
ground is trenched spade deep, thickly sown with unslacked lime, then covered 
with from two to three inches of fresh clean dry loam, and finally freely moistened 
with water through an ordinary garden-rosed watering-pot, when any floating lime 
dust is effectually disposed of, and the young birds may with safety be introduced. 
“Our aviary, in its entirety, measures in width about 27ft., and length 108ft., 
there being, however, three transverse divisions, four square compartments are 
thus formed. A small trench, one foot in depth, is dug around the whole structure. 
A piece of stout wire netting, one foot six inches in width, placed with one 
edge in the bottom of the trench, has its other laced with wire to the hurdles, 
up the outside of which it extends nine inches, when the earth is filled in, and 
rammed. The inclosure is thus rendered fox, cat, and rabbit-proof; it has further 
attached to it ‘gorse bavins,’ thus securing warmth and privacy. The whole of 
the other portions have now strained over them stout 1}in. mesh galvanised wire 
netting, the top only carefully left free, for ingress and egress of wild birds. Inside 
each compartment, and parallel with the divisions, is now placed a row of bush 
bavins, one against the other, tightly pressed together, forming an inverted letter V. 
On the apex of these faggots the birds love to perch, preen, and doze, while a secure 
retreat in case of sudden fright is offered by the little tunnel left at the base. A 
few faggots may also for a similar purpose be placed leaning against the sides and 
corners of the inclosure, those angles where the doors are hung excepted. 
“We have also two smaller pens, alike in all respects, and attached to those 
already described, but in measurement only 10ft. by 7ft. These are used for the 
temporary confinement of any quarrelsome egg-destroying or otherwise refractory 
bird, who can thus, until its wing is sufficiently strong for flight, remain. One of 
the hurdles dividing these small pens from its neighbours—as, indeed, in each of 
the interior divisions—should be easily removable to the end, that the birds can at 
pleasure be driven right through into the smaller pens for the purpose of capture, 
wing-clipping, &c. 
“The introduction and placing about occasionally of freshly-cut fir tree 
branches is judicious. With reference to aliment, the greater the variety offered 
the better; and for a thoroughly trustworthy detail upon this vital point, again I 
gratefully add vide ‘Tegetmeier.’ Regularity in the hours of feeding, however, is 
as essential as is the quality of food administered—three times diurnally, any 
unfinished débris of the previous meal having first been carefully removed, should 
the repasts be neatly and delicately served, not forgetting that, while all required 
is offered with no niggard hand, over-lavish generosity, only too often the mere 
promptings of laziness, ought most carefully to be avoided. 
“ Powerless ave the prisoners to escape those fatal miasmatic vapours speedily 
generated by decaying vegetable and animal matter, which, when permitted to daily 
Liz 
