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Miss Charlotte Ivens



only wickedness is, if ever a chicken happens to get into the garden

it is always death to it, as he darts after it at once, and the chicken

comes to a bad end.


I keep him well supplied with food in the winter, and he

does not appear to mind the cold in the least. Agrippa has been a

source of great pleasure and interest to me for the last five years

and, I trust, will be for many more to come.



A SHORT RECORD OF MY DOVES’

DOINGS,


WITH MENTION OF MY DWARF PARROT.


By Charlotte Ivens.


As the heading of this brief article will infer, there is little I

have to tell concerning my, at present, but small flock of doves.


Much as I love all birds, this group of the ColumbcB ever has

been, and will remain, my favourite one. So that, as I have only

space for, and time to attend to, a limited number of feathered pets,

I prefer to keep to those I am most in sympathy with. Let me then

write of some of the members of my little family.


Of course, the familiar but always delightful Barbary Doves

have a prominent place among them, of which there are two pairs—

one hen dating back to 1896. She was given to me at Strassburg

(Germany) by an acquaintance, together with her original mate,

both birds being at that time a year old or a little over. Since then,

she came to England with me, was paired a second time (her mate

having flown away), and now still bides with me in Portugal with

her third mate, the second one dying in England. And this wonder¬

ful old bird, not only still continues to lay, but, since 1910, when I

came over to Lisbon, has hatched and reared various young ones

successfully. One is now just four weeks old and she is sitting

again ; surely a record I should say. She does not look her age,

never having had either her nails or beak cut, nor does she need

these operations. Her daughter, hatched in England, is paired to a

fine young Portuguese Barbary named “ Cheery,” an appellation

he well deserves.



