Of the Crow family I have three kinds—the Starling,

Jackdaw, and Jay. There are about a dozen Starlings in my

aviary ; though I would not keep so manjr were it not through

fear of losing one I have had for five years, not being able to

distinguish my favourite from the others except by his voice,

which is superior to anything I had ever imagined in a Starling—

for he imitates every bird in the aviarjq and chuckles over his

imitations when he has finished. This bird I obtained from a

nest, having taken him while unfledged, and placed him in a

cage which I then hung over the entrance to the nest. The old

birds attended to him for about a month, when I placed him in

the aviary. The others were only admitted to save their lives

in a hard winter.


It is very singular that my Starlings have never bred in

the aviary, though some of them have been almost reared in it.

My one Jackdaw was also reared by its mother in my aviary.

My Jay was a purchase from England *: he is not much of a

mimic, but is a beautiful bird, and quicker in his movements

than any other with which I am acquainted. I feared that the

smaller birds would have no chance of breeding in the same

aviary with him, and so built another aviary in a sunnier spot,

which has been quite successful. In building this, I took advantage

of the angle between two walls, so that there was perfect shelter

from N. winds, and the wire netting was only on the S. side.

I also boarded more than half the flooring of the aviary in a

sloping manner, so that the birds have always got dry footing to

rest on below as well as on the perches. I also placed a number

of boxes, cocoa-nuts, etc., in suitable positions for nesting, but

here, as in the other ayfary, my birds greatly preferred their own

to my arrangements. Not many, however, constructed nests or

laid eggs, except a pair of Bullfinches and a pair of Budgerigars,

these latter being indefatigable in that way.


Of the Warbler family, I have only kept four, and one of

these, a Stonechat, only lived with me for a few days. A Wheatear,

however, lived for about two months, and I had an opportunity of

watching the peculiar movements of its tail and the spreading out

of its wings whilst it sang. The Robin I possess is so wild, that

after two years residence with me, whenever I go inside, it creeps

under the boarding and remains in hiding till I have left. I pur¬

chased a pair of Hedge Sparrows or Hedge Accentors, but the

hen died in less than a week. The survivor has astonished me with

the beauty of its song: after a hfime it became quite tame, and



* The writer of this article resides in Ireland. —Ed.



