THE



Hvtcultural iHbaga3tne t


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



VOL. V. — NO. 58. All rights reserved. AUGUST, 1899.


MY AVIARIES.


By O. E. Cresswell.


My apology for the early reappearance of my signature in

our Magazine is that I learn from the Secretary that “copy”

has of late been short. It is some time, I think, since any

member of the Society has described his or her aviary. I was

asked in our earlier days to write some account of my own, but

hesitated to do so : firstly, because my birds’ abodes, of one kind

and another, are so many that a description of them all would be

wearisome, and, secondly, because I was afraid of seeming to

imply that my own arrangements were a model for others,

instead of being very sensible, as I am, of their many short¬

comings. I have learnt, however, that aviculturists at least

derive pleasure from seeing and reading of the aviaries of others,

and I expressly preface this paper with the statement that I do

not put these notes together as an example of what is best;

but simply as an account of what are my own arrangements.


My aviaries are in position unlike others that I know :

they are very scattered. This arrangement has its advantages

and its disadvantages. Pro —It is pleasant, when walking about

the grounds, here and there to come upon some fresh nook with

its aviary. It is an advantage, too, to have them in widely

different situations, almost in different climates, so that birds

can have complete changes ; e.g., through the summer they can

reside in a cool umbrageous retreat, in winter on a sheltered

bank which catches every possible ray of sunshine. Contra —It

is, of course, much more expensive to erect a number of isolated

aviaries, than to erect the same number of the same size in a

row under one roof. There is, too, great increase of labour in

attending to aviaries thus located ; and this is added to, in my

case, by the fact that some of them must stand 150 feet, or even

200 feet, higher than others. Again, aviaries so placed must be

somewhat open, not exactly to the ravages of vermin, but to



