312 Cowespojidence.


the Society is obliged to consider. This obligation on our part to combine

exhibition with preservation is too often lost sight of by thoughtless critics

who are wearying in their repetition of the patent absurdity that the

vSociety, handicapped in that and other ways, ought to be able to keep birds

and animals better than private owners who have a perfectly free hand and

nothing to consider but the welfare of their species. Glass cages may not

appeal to Mr. Astley's aesthetic side; that is a quite unimportant detail.

When, however, he proceeds to assert dogmatically that the lives of birds

are shortened by that method of exhibition, he puts himself in the position

in which it is necessary to remind him that he is stating as a fact what is at best

an opinion, and an opinion worth very little attention, because it is founded

on assumptions of the flimsiest kind. How in the world can he or any-

one else know that some birds that died in similar cages would have

survived if differently accommodated ? Other birds of the same and of

different kinds lived in them for months in perfect health ; and for any

thing Mr. Astley can know to the contrary the days of those that died may

have been lengthened by the method of keeping them. If one Cockatoo

dies in the Parrots' House and another in the Parrots' Aviary in the Gardens,

there are people who can see nothing illogical in concluding that the first

would have lived in the aviary and the second in the house; and the

inference is just as defensible as the inference regarding the Sugar Birds

put forward by Mr. Astley as a logicall}' domesticated conclusion.


No one will be surprised to hear that Mr. Astley's Sugar Birds thrive

in his bird-room with open windows or even on the balcony. One of ours

lived a long time in our Parrot House and others have done so in the Insect

House. They also appear to thrive in the New Birds' House. Personally I

think they would do splendidly in the Western Aviary, if they proved them-

selves capable of competing with larger birds. All this merely goes to

show that these birds are hardy in the sense of having considerable power

of environmental adaptation in captivity. This is a conclusion of practical

value and interest to aviculturists ; and this Mr. Astley would probably have

seen had he been less intent on proclaiming the superiority of his own

methods over those practised in the Zoological Gardens.


I fear Mr. Astley also needs reminding that air may be hot or moist or

odorous, or all three combined, and } T et be fresh in the sense of having its

proper percentage of ox3'geu. That the air of the Insect House, despite its

alleged "stuffiness," is not serious^ lacking in that vital essential is proved

by the success with which the Hoopoes, Paradise Birds, and other species

have been kept in it. True we lost two King Birds, and one of them within

the twelve-month ; but he died in faultless condition of feather and flesh.

The second lived about two years and a quarter and died in moult, emaciated.

Will any body be foolish' enough to say that the cause of the death in either

case, or both, was persistent or temporary vitiation of the atmosphere ?

The birds might have done better or thev might have done worse elsewhere.



