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Correspondence, Notes, etc.



every night afterwards by twos and threes until about sixty had been

destroyed) ; rats have never troubled me because all my aviaries are pro¬

tected by concrete and small-mesh wire.


Seed-hoppers are of little use to prevent waste, because a mischievous

bird will keep stirring away at the opening until he has emptied the whole

of the contents upon the floor, even though the hopper is limited to one

kind of seed; and they are no protection against mice, which sit on the

front and help themselves as easily as do the birds. My arrangement of an

open pan upon an iron standard about eighteen inches high, or the use of a

deep zinc trough with a small pan in the centre hanging high up upon a

smooth wall are by far the most satisfactory seed-receptacles known to me.

I believe Miss Alderson told me, when she saw the latter in one of my

aviaries, that she had adopted a similar design herself.


The “ Canal Bank ” aviary at our Zoological Gardens perhaps was a

mistake; but in one respect I found it satisfactory. Until I first saw this

aviary I had never had the pleasure of seeing a flying Macaw; and only on

rare occasions when a Cockatoo or Amazon had escaped from its cage,

perhaps three or four times only in my life, had I seen these birds in

flight, and although, as Mr. Wiener says, the Cockatoos flopped round

screaming, I was thereby impressed (as he evidently was not) with the fact

that they hilariously enjoyed the exercise and comparative liberty which

they were experiencing. In short I pitied the poor maltreated trees in that

aviary far more than I did the birds, although I wondered greatly how the

winter would affect them in so exposed an enclosure.


To sum up, my opinion is, that in our public gardens small flights

should be utilized for exhibiting species, each kind kept separate ; but, for

breeding, thickly planted open-air aviaries communicating with indoor

winter quarters, the number of species proportioned to the size of the

aviary and judgment used in their selection. A. G. Butpkr.



Sir,— I have read Mr. Wiener’s article in the current number of the

Avicultural Magazine and am, on the whole, in agreement with his views,

which my own experience in the past tends to confirm. The New York

experiment is simply grotesque and can only have been conceived by some¬

one entirely unacquainted with birds. The Western Aviary at the “ Zoo ”

was at one time my beau ideal of what such structures should be, but ex¬

perience again has shown me that it may be modified with advantage, not

only to the owner but to the birds themselves. Although names and even

pictures of the different birds are placed along the front of this aviary, it is

difficult for anyone, and for a tyro impossible, to identify the different

species.


Mr. Wiener’s expressed view of keeping several species together are

in the main correct. Gregarious birds however, such as the Budgerigar,

may be kept together in any number compatible with the size of the



