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Mr. W. E. Teschemaker,



The question now to be decided was—what to do with the

Black and Tans ?


I built some breeding pens this year (as they were recom¬

mended by some of our members) and one of these was still

unoccupied, being reserved for my old pair of Virginian Car¬

dinals. Now as the Tanagers were a ioo to i chance and the

Virginians had reared no less than nine young to the flying stage

in 1905 (although for various reasons only three survived), it

seemed a reasonable decision to let the latter have the pen.

However, in aviary matters, it is usually the unexpected that

happens, and so it was in this case. Yet I doubt very much

whether, if I had put the Tanagers by themselves, I should have

been able to report a successful result. For these breeding pens

have proved with me quite a failure and I have returned to my

original point of view—that a bird (and especially an active,

restless species) is better in health and more likely to breed in a

large aviary where it has others to persecute and be persecuted

by.


So the Black and Tans were put into No. 1—so called

because it was the first outdoor aviary I ever constructed—and

for the simple reason that there was no other place to put them.

Here there were some Pekins, some Green Singing Finches,

some Bib Finches, a pair of Ortolans, some Roller Canary hens—

in a word, nothing of value except a really good cock Roller, the

only good one I bred in ’05.


This aviary is 14 ft. long, 10 ft. deep, and only 6 ft. 6in.

high. It contains a small covered house, very slightly warmed.

It has a high brick wall on two sides, with pear and peach trees,

and, on the other, the side of the house of the larger aviary. In

front there are some euonymus shrubs, at the back a low privet

hedge, and in the middle a path used twice a day by the servant

going to fill the seed tins in the larger aviary.


A more unlikely place to breed Tanagers than this could

hardly be imagined ; indeed, with the exception of the Indian

Silverbill, I have never bred anything at all out of the common

in this little aviary.


I have nothing more to record about the Black Tanagers

until the 12th of May, 011 which day I saw them making a tour



