Notes on ?ny Birds.



231



as a broad ledge outside the nest. I put dry heather in the

bottom, but the Doves turned it out. The egg was laid a few

inches away on the hard wood, and of course was broken. I

have tried to make the nest box a safer nesting place since, and

hope some day I shall be able to tell you of the rearing of a young

Black-bearded Dove.


And now I must take you to my last built aviary. This

house is a long way my favourite, and though it has faults, which

I should correct if I had it to build over again, still in many ways it

is very convenient. This aviary is divided into five divisions, each

composed of flight and shelter, which two parts can be shut off

from each other. Part of the roof over the flights is glass, part

wire netting. The roof over the shelter is of corrugated iron

lined with wood. The floor (except under the open part of the

flight) is cemented, and an earthenware shallow tank is fixed

into each house as a bath, fitted with a plug and waste pipe.

These baths all drain into a dumb well, and never get choked or

give any trouble.


At the back of the aviary is a wide passage the whole

length, one end portion however being partitioned off as a small

aviary, the other as a porch and seed-room. I find this passage

and seed-room most useful for storing food, and everything else

of the many articles wanted in an aviary. In the passage are

two large cages let out in the wall. They reach from floor to

ceiling and ai e so arranged that they can be divided into either

two or four cages as may be required. One is at present

tenanted by four sweet little American flying squirrels, but these

are not subjects for a bird magazine,so I must leave them alone.

I find these cages very handy for birds that will not stand roost¬

ing out at night in winter, or for sick birds. The cages, as I said r

reach to the floor, but, as it would hardly do to keep birds so low

down as this, I have made the bottom part in one place into a

cupboard for storing sand (of which we use a good deal) and the

other for keeping the coke for the fire in. These most necessary

articles are thus kept neatly out of the way, and having a good

supply on the spot saves many a journey, for the aviary is a long

way down the garden, and the coke and sand have to be carried

a considerable distance.



