Notes on my Birds.



311



like to turn them loose ; but I think the neighbouring and never-

ending woods of oaks with their carpets of blue bells, fox gloves,

bracken and the like would swallow them up, although if they lived,

their very distinctive coo would let one know they were there.

If only they would rear their young, I would try it with the latter.

“ If only! ” how often one says that in connection with one’s birds,

as well as other things !



NOTES ON MY BIRDS.


By B. G. R. Peddie Waddell.


I am sending you a short account of my birds, although I

really do not think that what I have to tell is of interest to anyone

but myself.


I have kept foreign birds for about ten years now, beginning,

as we nearly all do, with a pair of Budgerigars which I bought on a

visit to the South of France, and at present I have about fifty birds

of different kinds. I am quite sure that no birds belonging to any

other member of our Society have as much travelling as mine have,

because for five months of the year my home is in Edinburgh and

the other seven months I live in Stirlingshire, and as in neither

place can I leave the birds they must travel backwards and forwards

with me.


In the country house I have a nice bird room, about 15 feet

long by 11 feet wide, with big cages 3 feet by 3 feet by 6 feet along

both sides, leaving a passage between. This room has a door window

which stands always open and a frame of wire netting fitted on the

outside in case of accidents. These cages or compartments contain

one pair Redrumps, one pair Cockatiels, one pair Diamond Doves,

one pair Black-cheeked Lovebirds, one pair Red-collared Lorikeets,

four pairs Yellow Budgerigars and two large compartments for small

Finches and Waxbills, which are fitted up with branch perches and

cosy sleeping boxes. In smaller cages at the door end of the bird-

room I have Mesias, Pekin Robins and Long-tailed Grassfinches,

In another room I have, in cages, Violet-eared Waxbills, Rainbow

Bunting, Nonpareil and Indigo Buntings, a Grey Parrot, a Senegal



