330



Mr. W. E. Teschemaker,



Mice have been a great trouble this year. It is no wonder,

as in the garden here the mice caught in traps are reckoned, not

by the dozen, but by the gross. The aviaries should have been

made mouse-proof, but this was too expensive. If a member

could tell me of any hanging aviary seed-dish that is mouse-

proof and thoroughly waterproof as well I should be most grateful.

What mice are caught in the aviaries are accounted for by a fox-

terrier who almost invariably accompanies me whilst feeding the

birds. She is quite steady with birds, as they are with her.


I have planted hops and roses in my aviaries, in the hope

of inducing green fly, but have never found a sign of it on either.

This may be owing to the fact that the birds keep them clean,

lor there is no lack of the insect on the rose trees in the garden

where they are not specially required.



NESTING OF THE BLACK REDSTART.


Ruticilla titys.


By W. E. Teschemaker, B.A.


( Concluded from page 297).


Black Redstarts are not easy birds to procure at any time,

and enquiries produced nothing more satisfactory than the state¬

ment that there was much snow in the south of Germany but no

Blackstarts (it was the early spring of 1911) and a definite promise

from one man that he would send me two hens in July. I closed

with this offer after impressing upon my correspondent that

hand-reared birds would be useless for my purpose and equally

so birds taken at a high elevation in the mountains. In due

course the “House-red-tails” were sent to a dealer in Berlin and

forwarded thence to me ; they were nice little birds, but there

was nothing feminine about their appearance. But one day in

the early autumn I received a post-card from the aforesaid Berlin

dealer to the effect that he “ feared that I might find that the


House-red-tails which Herr.had sent were cocks, so he had


taken the liberty of forwarding an adult hen.” There is an

innate courtesy about the German bird-dealer which might be

imitated on this side of the Channel with great advantage.


It is usually impossible to keep two Black Redstarts or



