140



THE MAGAZINE.


The members will doubtless have remarked the fact that the April

and May issues consisted of twelve pages only, which is less than ever

before, since the first year of the Society. The sole reason for this was that

I had so little suitable matter in hand for publication.


If the magazine is to be a continued success, it is essential that the

members should be more active in contributing to its pages than they have

been recently. I shall be glad to receive articles and letters for publication

from any members, especially from some of those who have hitherto

written little or nothing for the magazine. We are very much indebted to

the faithful little baud of regular contributors, but it is unfair to expect

them to do the whole of the work. I should also be glad to hear from,

several who used to write for the magazine but who have not done so lately.


Horatio R. Fieemer.



THE RATE SIR H. S. BOYNTON, BART.


The Society has lost a very able and experienced aviculturist through

the death on the nth April last, after a long illness, of its esteemed Vice-

President, Sir Henry S. Boynton, Bart.


He had an interesting collection of living birds within his beautiful

grounds at Burton Agnes, in East Yorkshire, keeping, at various times,

Emus, Rheas, a fine lot of Ornamental Pheasants, most of the British

Fresh-water Wild Ducks and Geese, Eagle Owls, and a very fine pair of

Golden Eagles the female of which laid a clutch of eggs during her

owner’s illness.


Sir Henry, for several summers up to 1897, had been in the habit of

bringing back with him from Norway, after the fishing season, various-

interesting birds from that country, including Eagle and Snowy Owls,

Siberian Jays, and usually a fine lot of young Gos-liawks, sometimes as-

many as six or eight in number. He spared no trouble in rearing these birds-

in their own country, and in bringing them across the North Sea: and,

being in the pink of condition, and often already partly trained, the Gos¬

hawks used, when their education was completed a little later, to afford their

captor, and several other falconers in different parts of England, excellent

sport with rabbits and other quarry.


But it is as a successful keeper of the insectivorous birds that Sir

Henry excelled. His system was, in the case of the more delicate kinds,

to absolutely exclude all farinaceous food, giving nothing to the Mocking

Birds, Shanias, Nightingales, Blue and Rock Thrushes, and Blackcaps, but

ants’ eggs, Carl Capelle food, preserved yolk of egg, and a few currants,,

the above moistened and given as a crumbling paste. He considered a

supply of course gritty sand a matter of great importance ; and his cages

were all roomy, allowing the inmates plenty of room for exercise. To this

treatment, and to the above diet especially, he attributed the fact that liis-

insectivorous birds always seemed in the best of condition, moulted clean,

and that they were absolutely free from those troublesome fits that so often

shorten the lives of these more or less delicate species when kept in

confinement.



