Bi/d Cages.



27



lie is old, but lie lias perfect health and is moulting capitally.

I11 stormy or rainy weather I cover the house-cage with a painted

piece of tin. The wild birds come and talk to the aviary birds,

and they all sing together. My birds are never ill and live for

many years.


With regard to keeping birds in little cages, where they

have 110 room to move their wings, and 110 protection to retreat

to, I have no words to express the horror I feel at such real

cruelty, and I consider the caging of Larks fiendish. Among all

the wonderful and beautiful works of Creation the bird is almost

the most marvellous, and the power of that exquisitely constructed

wing destroyed and paralysed in a wired box is the refinement of

torture, for a bird that is capable of such intense joy must be

equally sensitive to suffering.


I am an enthusiastic aviculturist and my birds are my

friends, and for this very reason I feel so strongly about their

being treated in a manner wholly antagonistic to their nature

and requirements. If anyone wishes to understand something

of the miracle of flight in a bird, “The Airy Way,” by Mr.

Dewar, will illustrate what I mean. The imprisonment of birds

has been allowed to go on unchecked far too long, and in an

enlightened country it should never even be possible. The

cottager in the country and the tenement dweller in London

has no idea that he is inflicting cruelty on the bird he keeps

as a pet in an unprotected cage (very rarely sanitary) fed im¬

properly and never allowed a bath. How often have I seen it

in villages and country towns, and have bought the poor little

half-starved bird to rescue it. And scores of times I have seen

it in London,—tiny boxes, in which the bird’s feet are so clogged

with dirt that his little toes drop off, and he has to peck up his

food in the filth in the cage, and to squeeze his neck through

the hole in the wire to get the drop of dirty water. The con¬

dition of the majority of birds so kept is deplorable, as also their

lot in too many bird-dealers’ shops. How can it be otherwise if

there are many hundreds of birds to tend and keep clean ? A

small army of cleaners would be required to keep them properly,

and an experienced ornithologist to regulate their diet. It is

short-sighted policy in a dealer, for he not only injures the stock



