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Dr. L. Lovell-Keays,



sloped away from south to north, which of course allows very much

more light and air to get in. I don’t think the plan calls for much

comment. The food is kept under a kind of small lean-to in front

of the middle shelter during the breeding season, but when young

birds are hatched out extra live food was placed on top of the post

and on a shelf in the left-hand shelter. The aviary is an ideal

summer aviary but a nasty damp place in the winter. The shelters

are then only used as bird-rooms for quite hardy birds. It will be

noticed that every aviary of this my “ South Series ” communicates

with the next door one. The advantages of this are of course

sufficiently obvious. The floor of the shelters is composed of

6 ins. of broken bricks, &c., covered with 3 ins. of fine sea sand.

This last is called “ gravel ” in Sussex. So much for the aviary.

Next we will take the inmates as they are of no little importance.


Last year (1914) I kept a mixed series here, consisting of

reedlings (3 pairs), hooded siskins, cordon bleus, firefinches, and (I

think) orange-breasted waxbills. The reedlings very nearly suc¬

ceeded then, but the nearest approach fell out of the nest about

two days before it could have flown out and so wrecked my hopes

and its parents’ happiness. Several other broods were reared up to

ten days so I flatter myself that complete success was no mere fluke.


This year I had in this aviary five pairs of reedlings, some

dull yellow birds, which a patient left with me and which I am told

were canaries, a cross-bred goldfinch, and a pair of the most charm¬

ing little long-tailed tits one could imagine. The stupid yellow birds

did their best to risk extermination, and I only discovered in time to

save the season why it was my reedlings were not nesting. Take

away a canary’s song and you have all that is dull and stupid

epitomized in the self-same canary. Within a few days of banishing

this “left luggage ” my favourite pair of reedlings started to celebrate

the year 1915 and the Park Lodge aviaries. By an odd coincidence

it was the same pair that obtained the first prize at the Horticultural

Hall last November, which reminds me that at a very second rate

show at Hastings this pair was awarded an H.C. in a miserably

weak class. So much for judge’s judgment! As a matter of fact

the hen was the most beautiful hen reedling I ever saw. I say

“was,” for, to my inexpressible grief, I have to sorrowfully record



