on the Winter Treatment of Foreign Birds.



237



autumn I made up my mind I, at any rate, would not do one thing

and that was to allow birds to go in and out of a warmed shelter

at their own sweet will. It seemed to me that that was asking

for trouble. But I must indulge in my incorrigible habit of digress¬

ing in order to bring my own line of thought in harmony with what

I am going to write.


Late last summer I was talking to our member Dr. Hopkinson,

when I made the following trite and seemingly ingenuous remark.

It was, “ Do you know, I believe birds live longer and are less liable

to die in cages than in an aviary.” His reply was even more trite—

“ I know they do,” was all he said. Ever since I became seriously

interested in aviculture I have been struck by the number of times I

have come across all sorts of birds kept in draughty cages, fed very

unscientifically in a vitiated and over-heated atmosphere, and yet

some of these birds have lived for long periods, often exceeding a

decade. Then my mind shifted automatically to the better-class

dealers who tend their birds carefully, such as Mr. John Erostick, and

I found their mortality could not be so very [high, for month after

month one saw the same birds advertised and birds that could not

be duplicated. Then with kaleidoscopic change, one’s mind harked back

to one’s own experiences, particularly with such bad livers as Pintail

Parrot Finches and Fire-finches, and how even they lived so long as

they were confined in a cage, but once outside the cage door they

quickly joined the immortals. Dr. Hopkinson was particularly

emphatic in his experience with Eire - finches, which coincided

exactly with mine. All this was very unpleasant to think upon

and created a feeling of evident avicultural indigestion. But facts

are stubborn things, and although they may be ignored and passed

over they insist upon rising up again and mocking you. In the

1913-14 winter I kept all my birds very carefully housed, and as

regards the small birds in a heated bird-room. My losses were not

heavy, and when at length the spring arrived I thought they had

come to an end. But they had not, and all through the summer

I had aggravating and disappointing losses. I was absolutely per¬

plexed. Here were birds acclimatized and established dropping off

in mid-summer, late summer and early autumn. At length the

winter of 1914-15 approached, and the question of dealing with



