on the Winter Treatment of Foreign Birds.



239



ing inside. And yet this is the best shelter I have, and the mortality

has been almost unappreciable, about 10 per cent. In my largest

aviary, containing another 50-60 birds, the average number of in¬

habitants of the shelter would for the six winter months be a fraction

of one. And this is the whole root of the evil. Birds will not roost

in the shelters. No blandishments, no coercion, will tempt them to

use the shelters regularly.* I must, after sad and bitter experience,

totally disagree with many thoughtful and accurate observers with

regard to the hardiness of foreign birds ; at any rate, as regards the

more freely imported species. It is easy to find instances where

single birds or even pairs have braved a winter and come through

safely, but isolated cases are no criterion and afford no facts of

scientific value. It is only by comparison of identical cases under

different circumstances but under the same conditions of locality

and weather that we obtain data that one can argue upon. Let me

illustrate my point. Dr. Hopkinson has been out in the Gambia

many years and has survived with but few ills. Is one to argue

from that that the other 400 odd members of the Avicultural Society

could live in the Gambia with impunity. The fact is that Dr.

Hopkinson (I hope he will forgive me for citing his name so much)

is one of the fortunate ones, and the Colonial Office forget to mention

those of its officers who have never returned. The moral is, of

course, obvious. A bird lives, and gives us joy when we see it, and

everything we have done to that bird and for that bird strikes us as

being right. But if only aviculturists would remember Pollonius’

advice to his son : “ To thine own self be true, &c., &c.” and keep

a record of their losses, I am sure their eyes would be opened, and

the rosy tint with which they paint their avicultural experiences

would give way to a mere utilitarian tint of man-o’-war grey. The

extraordinary thing is that all aviculturists (or nearly all) deny in¬

dignantly that they have losses. They all (or nearly all) claim to

breed innumerable birds, very few have birds to sell,—if we except

Budgerigars, Silverbills, and such like—and yet their aviaries never

get any fuller. It is strange, passing strange, and I understand it



* n have electric light in the shelters, which is turned on all through the winter

at dusk, and the birds go in to feed and remain there. The light is left on

until about S p.m.—ED.]



