Bird Notes from the Zoological Gardens. 265


food there and he would run close up to me, and even took a

little nap with his head under his wing as I watched him. I

think he had not slept much and felt safe and protected while I

was there. I drove him under agate and down a lane more than

half way home, but something frightened him and he turned

back to the field again. Some men had been watching and

trying to catch him. At last they worried him so that he flew off

towards the sea, but he returned again the next day and was as

tame with me as before. At last he was caught by a man who

did not know there was a reward offered for him, taken in a sack

to a poulterer’s shop (fortunately alive) and would have been

killed and eaten, but the poulterer knew about him and brought

him safely back to me.


I am quite sure birds as tame as mine enjoy being kept

loose in a garden, and do better, besides getting much tamer,

than when kept in a field. They love to search amongst the

mould for grubs and insects, and they like sometimes to stand

on gravel paths. In wet weather the Crowned Crane particularly

does not like to be always on grass, especially if it is long. But

then it is not every one who would care to give the garden up to

them and find all the bulbs dug up as soon as planted and the

grass edges destroyed. The Common Crane is the worst offender

in this respect; the Demoiselles (hens especially) do a fair

amount of digging with their sharp bills, but the Crowned

Cranes do absolutely none at all.



BIRD NOTES FROM THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.



At this time of the year the Zoological Gardens are quite

at their best, and there is no more delightful place for the

naturalist in the Metropolis. The improvements that have been

carried out are legion, and these are having an excellent effect

on the condition of the inmates.


In the Canal-bank aviary a pair of Beadbeater Cockatoos

have a couple of fine young birds which will probably be out of

the nest-box by the time these lines are in print. Roseate



