i88



Correspondence , Notes, ete.


the subject to the Magazine, with much pleasure I add my experience

to the very interesting letters already inserted.


I have had very large aviaries—90ft. long, 22ft. high, 40ft. wide—not

unlike the great flying aviary now at the Zoological Gardens, and my first

and great objection to these roomy, and undoubtedly healthy enclosures is,

the immense difficulty in excluding vermin. I consider that I fed many

hundreds of rats, mice, and weasels. Unless the ground is carefully wired

with half-inch wire netting, vermin will get in, and then the chances are

young birds never reach maturity. My aviaries were not wired; more¬

over, they were constructed with 3-inch netting, and through this size

small weasels can easily creep. This was the pest of the aviary; it is as

lithe and deadly as a poisonous snake, and truly cunning. I have had a

Peach-faced Love Bird taken off her nest (the nest was in the hollow of a

tree trunk) and every young bird (four) carried off; and not a trace of

the marauder but a few soft green feathers and a small hole, close to the

root of a Rhododendron bush. A priceless Hen Ganga Cockatoo, a bird

with a fierce temper and jaws like a steel trap, was found with her throat

bitten out. The fierceness and cunning necessary for the carrying out of

auch a scheme can be conjectured, especially when the size of the murderer

was realized, for he was caught the following night returning to finish his

meal, at the body of his victim.


I do not consider rats nearly so dangerous. I had innumerable

families of rats reared in the aviary, but they dared not touch the Cocka¬

toos, and contented themselves with odd eggs and young birds.


Again the difficulty of catching birds is immense. The only way

is to feed them in the house, and sit patiently hidden, with a cord attached

to the door waiting for the desired victim to enter. I need liardl}’ say

unlimited time and patience are essential.


I must say I lost few birds from disease; occasionally they died

from what I always imagined was consumption, but, on the whole, they

bred successfully and freely.


O11 the other hand my experience of cages is limited. I have kept

birds in cages—principally pet birds—but those I have kept I looked upon

as domesticated—they knew my voice, came to be fed, and lost in the

fact of their tameness, much of the originality of their wa\ T s. A tame

bird as a pet is charming, but it is not aviculture.


Doubtless, from the health point of view, birds do fairly well; but,

as a rule, I found they became too fat, and consequently diseased. They

have little else to do but to eat and sleep, and this cannot be conducive to

longevity. I have at the present moment a pair of Black Capped Lories

(Lorius tori) in a small aviary, loft, by 8ft., with a flight outside; also one

in a cage, placed there from force of circumstances, not from choice.

Those in the aviary are in faultless condition, brilliant in plumage, lively

and playful, as only Lories can be, racing up and down their perches,



