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turned back to allow the trap to be baited, or re-set. As there is

no earth in the flight it is impossible to plant any shrubs, so I

have quantities of Scotch Fir branches wired to the walls, and to

the enclosed tree trunks. In these branches are tied many little

flat-bottomed baskets, that I make myself, for the birds to nest

in, and which they much appreciate. One advantage of the fir

branches is that they can easily be renewed when necessary.


In this aviary I placed Turtles ( Turtur turtur), Aurita

('Zenaida aurita), Indian Green-winged (Chalcophaps indica ),

Australian Crested Marsh Doves ( Ocyphaps lophotes ), and a pair

of Necklace Doves ( Turtur tigrinus). All these have stood

twenty-six degrees of frost without any sign of discomfort. The

remainder of my doves live in a heated aviary. One of them, a

cock Diamond Dove, which has just finished moulting, has

changed from a decided pale grey to quite a drab colour. My

Indian Green-winged Doves are very uninteresting, they have

shown no signs of nesting, their plumage is always ragged, and

they spend all their time in the shelter, though I noticed in the

summer they came out at night to roost in a box tree. The

Necklace Doves I purchased from one of our members at the

Palace Show, Oct. 1898. I think this species must vary a good

deal. Those in the Zoo are larger and browner, and seem to lack

the pretty blush-coloured breasts of my own birds. They are

very gentle, and never fight unless attacked. The hen laid eggs

every few weeks, but was much disturbed by the Crested Doves,

which insisted on taking possession of every nest that the Neck¬

laces made, and sitting diligently on the eggs, and being much

the stronger birds of the two, the rightful owners were powerless

to resist. This happened so often that I was obliged to move

the Crested Doves into another smaller aviary.. Here, after

several nests of clear eggs, they reared one fine young one.

They are intensely proud of it, and it still roosts between the

old birds every night. I noticed one of the parents feeding it

when it was quite a month old.


The next enemy of the unfortunate Necklaces was the

cock Aurita Dove. This fine, but bad-tempered bird, used to-

hide regularly in the shelter, and when the Necklaces, but par¬

ticularly the cock, came down to feed, he would dart out and

drive them off, and then retire to his hiding-place, to await his

next opportunity. This occurred many times, and seriously

interfered with the rearing of the young Necklaces, but I got

over the difficulty by placing pans of food and water close to the

nest, using two spare nest baskets as brackets. The poor Neck-



