Notes on my Birds.



the soft food. I much prefer it for this purpose to grated carrot.

In addition to their seed diet of wheat, hemp, dari, white millet,

and a little rice—the Doves are very fond of shelled and cut up

monkey nuts (which I get from Messrs. Armitage, seed

merchants, Nottingham) and ground biscuit. I use a kind of

biscuit called “ President,” and the price per £ cwt. is about 16/-. I

think these two kinds of food are very good for the Doves,

besides seed—for they always seem to keep well and in good

plumage—and some specimens I have had for many years now.


Every night a canvas curtain drawn on a wire with rings

is drawn across the open front of the aviary. It keeps the birds

quiet at night, and also keeps out the cold. I cannot keep more

than three pairs of nesting doves in each division of the aviary:

to try and keep more would only mean that if any young ones

were reared the space would be far too overcrowded, and the later

nests would come to nothing. As it is I have to take the young

ones away when they are getting a good size and place them in

another part.


In No. i division live a pair of the Bleeding Hearts, a pair

of Brush Bronze-wings and a pair of Rufous Pigeons. These

latter are very rare and the original pair was sent to me from

Jamaica ; their name was unknown and they had in the first

place come from Barranquilla in South America. Later Mr.

Newman, who is most kind in identifying any rare birds for me,

identified them as the Rufous Pigeon (Columba rtifi.no) from the

skin of the old cock, which I was so unfortunate as to lose. Before

this bird died the pair reared one fine young one—a cock ; then

they nested again, and when the second young one was only a few

days old the original cock died. Just afterwards the second young

one fell out of the nest and was picked up cold and almost dead.

To my surprise, after a time the warmth of my hand revived it,

and finally, under the care of some Barbary Doves, it grew into a

fine bird. When nearly full grown, however, it died, I don’t

know from what cause.


This left me with only the old lieu and the young cock.

They nested and have had several fertile eggs—always one egg

only being laid at a sitting—but some months ago the cock began

to suffer from lumps or tumours coming in his face. Up to then



