Afrci Doves.



81



noctural enemies. Occasionally one got out, and after a flight round

the garden, came to he let in again.


Their note is strangely mournful, a sort of reproachful moan,

ending in three little notes like a toy trumpet: “ Too-tu-too ! Too-

tu-too ! Too-tu-too ! ”


I have never seen my Af'ras hathe, and they drink very seldom.

They love basking in the sun, hut will stand almost any weather

provided they have a shelter to retire to, out of any draught or cold

wind. I find it difficult to identify a pair, as the sexes are alike, and

they are too sociable for ‘ aloofness.’ Their beauty tempted me to

buy the first pair I had, for they are some of the loveliest of the

doves, with their soft mouse-grey backs and wings, the latter having

metallic spots on the top, and a rich chestnut brown underneath,

visible when in flight. Their heads 'are ashen blue, the eyes large

and dark brown, and the white breast has a faint rose blush on it.


Last summer I received a pair of little Ruddy Turtles, also

beautiful birds ; the cock rose-red, with a light blue head and black

ring round the neck ; the hen a soft grey-brown, with a black neck¬

ring also. They and the Afras live most harmoniously together in a

new rustic aviary I have just had constructed, and which I find quite

satisfactory. It is made in two pieces, each half easily carried by a

man and a boy, and fastened together, so as to defy rats, at the top

of the gable, which is 6ft. 6in. high. The aviary is made of larch

poles with the bark left on, and half-inch wire-netting, the latter

carried on to form a rat-proof floor, sunk six inches into the ground

and filled in with earth and gravel and turf. The aviary is 6ft. 6in.

wide (facing the gable) and oft. 4in. deep. The roof on the north

side is partially covered by boarding over the wire, and a moveable

shelf runs along the whole width, with nesting baskets. They could

also nest in a fir-tree in the cage, or among the branches which form

their perches. The cage faces South. Sheets of zinc laid on half

way along the wire roof protect from bad weather. The earth must

be raked over every other day and the perches cleaned, a very simple

matter.


I am curious to learn how long the little party will be able to

stay out of doors ; they have weathered nine degrees of frost and were

none the worse for it, but as I write we are not yet quite in winter.



