9



When selecting a room for your birds, choose, if you can, a lofty room,

facing south or thereabouts, on the ground floor, with the window opening

on to the private garden. There are several advantages in having the bird-

room on the ground floor. The temperature is more equable than if it be

somewhere among the garrets ; the birds are more handy during your

waking hours ; you are less likely to stir up the ire (always latent, if not

alw T ays expressed) of the petticoated members of the household, as you will

avoid making a mess about the house, and being accused of wearing out

the stair-carpet by your “ perpetual tramping up and down after those nasty

things;” and above all you maybe tempted to do what I have done—to

build an aviary in the garden coming up to and against the house, and so

arranged that you can let your birds fly backwards and forwards between

the bird-room and the aviary, just as you may deem prudent or find con¬

venient.


Your bird-room must (I prefer must to ought) have a fire-place, to assist

the ventilation ; and, in my room, at the very top of the wall, l have had a

good-sized hole knocked through into the chimney, protected by a grating.

A wire-guard protects the fire-place, and prevents any bird going up the

chimney, or sitting on the cold bars in a very draughty place. The window

is protected by wire-netting : I have two light wooden frames covered with

netting, the one fitted over the upper half of the window, the other over the

lower; either of these can be easily removed, to allow the birds egress and

ingress; or, when left in position, the window can be opened without allow¬

ing the escape of the inmates. The window, moreover, can be opened and

closed from the outside, without entering the bird-room.


The room should be as light as possible, but should be provided with

a dark blind ; this latter is of great value when you desire to catch a bird,

one person trimming the blind, while you catch your bird without any

bustle. I still have a blind ; but, since I have introduced some of the larger

parrakeets into the family, it has fared rather badly. The walls are washed,

not papered ; and, if you may (I may not), you will do well to cut a panel or

two out of the door, and coyer the apertures with netting; the apertures

serve not only as peep-holes, but also as aids to ventilation. If too draughty

or cold, a piece of green baize, or other covering, can be arranged to fall

down over them as required.


The question of the floor and its covering is a very serious one. If

you have tiny finches, waxbills, and the like, I suppose there is nothing

better than a good layer of sand. This has the disadvantage, however, of

clinging to one’s feet as one leaves the room, with the unavoidable conse¬

quences that more is carried away and deposited elsewhere than the ruling

powers usually approve of. Not long since I met a gentleman who is very

warm on the canary. I have never seen his bird-room, but, like that of

most fancy canary breeders, doubtless it contains or.ty caged birds. As he

piteously remarked, it is impossible to help a little seed-husk getting about,

or a little dirt of some kind sticking to one’s slippers ; but he said that he


is regarded among his own household as an outcast, and a - , and is


treated accordingly. Nevertheless, I am glad to say that he has nailed his

colours to the mast, and has no intentions of surrendering. If the man

without sand on his floor is treated thus, how will it fare with the one who

sands his floor properly ! A little while back, someone writing to the papers

told us how it ought to be done. He commenced by' letting his birds fly

loose in the room ; but, after having been taught the errors of his ways, he

shut them up in cages, seated himself comfortably 7 in the centre of the room,

lighted his pipe, and was able to view his feathered prisoners with a quiet

mind, and amidst that domestic harmony which should prevail even in the

house of an aviculturist. To my mind, this was retrogression, not progression.

He evidently had not the same grit in him as has our canary friend.


But I am wandering. I do not have sand on the floor of my bird-room.

Most of the birds I have kept for these many y 7 ears have been large ones;

and for such a sandy floor would probably 7 be a mistake. I have one piece

of floor-cloth running the whole length of the room, and 9ft. wide—the

widest I could obtain : this covers a very large part of the floor. A nurse-



