204



Correspondence, Notes, etc.



favours aviaries. The question is what sort of cages does he condemn, what

sized aviaries does he favour, which cardinal points he does not mention.”

To give the size of a hypothetical aviary would be childish, the size of an

aviarv must depend so entirely upon circumstances. My aviary covers

every inch of ground at my disposal; it consists of my entire garden

covered over with wire netting. People may laugh at it because it is only a

miserable London back garden, but that is my misfortune not my fault; if I

could make it larger I most certainly should do so, and very much larger

too. It is a trifle under 48 ft. X 18 ft. x 10 ft. high, and can be used as one

or divided into two parts. The one end abuts on to the back of the house,

and covers the garden door and, amongst others, the lower half of the

window of an ordinary ground-floor room 12^ ft. X 12 ft. x 9^ ft. high

which serves as the birdroom, the aviary and birdroom being connected by

his window.


As a home for birds, I detest (as the result of years of trial) everything

that can be called a cage or aviary-cage. I have only two in regular use this

winter, one on the top of the other, in my dining-room. The lower is

6 ft. X 2 ft. X 2 ft. high, and contains such of the small foreign birds as do

not winter satisfactorily in the birdroom. The upper is of the same length

and breadth but, having a gable roof, is some inches higher. It now con¬

tains only a pair of Violet-eared Waxbills, just the arrangement Mr. Wiener

recommends—but the cage is more suitable than his are I think. The

incessant singing of the male is very pleasing—but it is as pleasing when

heard in the aviary. They were so set on nesting that, contrary to my

inclinations, I gave in and let them have their way. When laying com¬

menced about a fortnight back, I came down every morning fearing disaster,

but happily the female got safely over her troubles —and the eggs were eaten

by the male!* What is there of interest in that? In an aviary this would

not have occurred, at any rate they would have done their best to “ breed a

progeny,” which so few will do in a cage, and which still fewer would do in

one of Mr. Wiener’s cages exposed to the close public inspection he still

advocates. So far as my caged birds are concerned, they are wintered in

ca^es because I am unable to provide better accommodation for them ; but,

as soon as May comes round and weather permits, out every one of them

goes into the garden aviary—and out into the aviary would they go were

it many times as large as it is.


It seems to me that Mr. Wiener gives himself away, and likewise his

case by letting in daylight, when he says that he knows but two ways—a

gun or a fire engine (in January, 1901, his gardener’s small hot-house syringe

was a sufficiently potent weapon—O.S. VII., p. 59)—of catching a bird in

what he calls a huge aviary (and here again he beats the air, as only for

special birds would one take the Canal Bank aviary as a pattern). After

such a statement, one feels that Mr. Wiener can never have been a boy,



,* The female has again laid, and again have the eggs been eaten.—It. P.



