Correspondence , Notes, etc. 181


canary cages or those abominable show cages for small birds which were in

use many years ago at the Parrot House, and which I condemn altogether.


I venture to assert that it is not a successful “ environment made to

imitate natural conditions as far as possible,” if we house in one enclosure a

heterogenous lot of birds, which would not consort in freedom and where

some of the inmates live in terror of some others from whom they cannot

escape, unless an aviary is imagined as big as Regent’s Park.


I happen to have been present and unable to help when in one aviary

a pair of Pies attacked and killed a little Dove, and on another occasion,

when in the Canal Bank Aviary, a pair of Carrion Crows combined to kill

between them a poor young newly arrived Gull. Accidents will happen

everywhere, but these instances were preventible accidents, from which a

useful lesson might be learnt.


It is in my opinion no kindness to the birds to house a number of

different species in an aviary, it does not allow the natural habits of the birds

to be studied, and it does not enable the visitor to distinguish species of a

similar size.


Mr. Pocock quotes me as having written that birds are more interest¬

ing objects in small than in large cages. I must say that I never thought

nor wrote thus.


I advocated roomy cages for each species in preference to large flight

aviaries into which a heterogeneous lot of birds of different habits, tempera¬

ments and requirement sare put, and I even mentioned the measurements

of suitable cages in which a pair of small birds would be very happy, viz.,

28 or 30 inches wide, 24 inches high, and 15 inches deep. If anyone having

cages will measure what the above figures mean, it will be found that I

wrote in favour of larger cages than any habitually used anywhere for

small birds.


It may be interesting to note that the cages now used in the Parrot

House are of three sizes, the smallest, 18 inches square and 28 inches* high,

the larger 24 inches square and 35 inches high, and the largest or Parrot

aviaries 36 inches wide, 54 inches deep and 68 inches wide.


Those who keep and seriously study small foreign birds would call

cages of the size I recommend aviaries, and would no more think of turning

pairs of small birds into huge crowded aviaries than they would turn out a

number of valuable horses into a big field instead of keeping them in a

loose box.


Mr. Pocock is not pleased with what I wrote about the Canal Bank

Aviary. I think time will show that the more moderate sized flight aviaries

attached to the Parrot House will prove infinitely more satisfactory and also

more interesting than the large tent-like structure on the Canal Bank.


So far the few young Parrots hatched in the large Canal Bank Aviary

have in no single case survived leaving the nest. As Mr. Pocock seems not

to care to breed Parrots and sees no great objection to rats feeding with



