140



may be, though the aviary is totally unheated, and yet they are

infinitely superior in health and feather to birds of the same

kind carefully attended to in heated aviaries.


My aviary was easily made, thus:—I planted eight posts

around the tree, and nailed short pieces in a sloping position

from these posts to the tree. This cap I roofed in with wood,

and then covered the wood with tarred felt. Next I nailed wire

netting, narrow in mesh, all round the posts down to the ground,

except between two of the posts, where I left an opening, about

three feet high, in which I afterwards placed a door, made also of

netting attached to a frame. Then, as additional security, as

well as for shelter, I boarded over the netting at the base and

top for about nine inches. No other protection has ever been

given to my birds, and as there are very many kinds in the

aviary I can exercise no particular control over their food, each

being free to indulge his fancy. There is always sufficient food

placed fresh in the aviary, together with clean water at least

once a day. Hemp, canary seed, millet, rape, wheat and maize

are the only seeds used ; nothing else is given except a basinful

of bread soaked in milk, fresh every morning, with occasional

treats of groundsel, duckweed, plantain and water-cress. I

have never troubled to soak the bread in water, or to squeeze out

the alum. I notice that bread soaked in milk is preferred by all

birds—for all eat it when fresh—to bread soaked in water.


With regard to bathing, some birds are inordinately fond of

it, and all enjoy it whilst the water is clean. Starlings would bathe

twenty times a day if you gave them fresh baths so often ; and

the same may be said of Bramble-finches and Missel-Thrushes,

though Song-thrushes and Fieldfares are not so persistent.

Bullfinches and Chaffinches too are fond of bathing, as are also

most of the Bunting family, except the Common or Corn

Bunting; but I have never seen Sparrows or Quails bathe,

though both kinds delight in the sand heap as a substitute.


I purchased two Quails, both cocks, for I have never been

able to obtain a hen, and though one killed itself against the

wire the first night, the other still survives. This bird has, more

than once, slipped out whilst the door was open ; but it never

seems to care about going away, and waits quietly outside till I

catch it. It often gives the well-known Ouail-call, but it has

another kind of call, like the crowing of a cock, that I have

never heard described by any observer.* My Californian Quails

are beautiful but rather wild.



* The Chinese Quail has it also.—A. G. B.



