MY FOREIGN DOVES AND PIGEONS, 



another can be heating on the stove, and so a 

 continual supply of warmth be kept up. Another 

 advantage is that the heat keeps my food stuffs dry 

 and wholesome, for a wooden building is not the 

 best of keeping places in winter, and as I also 

 keep my dogs' food in sacks in the aviary passage 

 it is very important it is free from damp. 



There are shelves covered with a curtain in the 

 passage as well as in the seed room ; and a broad 

 shelf high up right across one end. All spare 

 perches, cloths, heather for nesting, nesting tins, 

 etc., are kept on these, and hooks are screwed into 

 the roof for spare cages to hang from. A writing- 

 desk, fixed on an iron bracket stands under one 

 window, and here I keep my collection of feathers 

 and the medals my birds have won for me at 

 different times, also the large printed labels for 

 putting on the boxes of birds going away. There 

 are so many things one needs in an aviary, and, if 

 possible, each should have its own particular place 

 where it can always be found. 



When first I built this aviary, with the exception 

 of one let-out cage, all cages in the passage had 

 to stand on the floor or hang from the roof, and I 

 soon found this very inconvenient, so I adopted the 

 same plan as I had done in No. 2 aviarj', and let out 

 some more -cages in the walls. On the north side 

 my little flying squirrels have three large cages 

 opening into each other by sliding doors, that can 

 be worked from the outside. Below one of these 

 again is a spare cage, and underneath another is a 

 large cupboard I use for storing sand. At the 

 western end of the passage is another cage (let out 

 into the little aviary at the end) where lives my 

 white Chipping squirrel, "Anthony," and on the 

 other side of the passage are two more very large 

 cages (let out into the shelters of Divisions 2 and 

 3), below these two last are store places — as I did 

 not care to bring the cages right down to the floor 

 — each large enough to hold several sacks of food. 

 In one I keep my dogs' biscuits, in the other 

 bags of acorns, beech and other .nuts for the 

 squirrels. Besides my American Flying squirrels 

 and the Chipping squirrel I have two Tasmanian 

 phalangers, or Sugar Squirrels, and most of these 

 • live in the passage cages. The fronts of all the 

 cages (but one) face the passage, and look rather 

 nice, besides, as most of them have glass (wired) 

 windows let into them, they make the passage 

 much lighter than it would otherwise be without 

 them. 



The five ioors opening into the front divisions 

 are all of wood and wire, three open into the 

 passage, and those at the extreme ends into the 

 seed room and little extra aviary. As I have 

 already told you the first portion of these divisions 

 consists of a shelter ; these shelters are a good 



height, for they come under the centre of the roof, 

 and here the aviary is 11 ft. high, whereas it slopes 

 down to 65 ft. at the ridge. The shelters have 

 each a window. In the three centre ones this 

 window is in the front part, in the two outer ones 

 at the ends. The shelters have wood and wire 

 doors leading into the flights, and fitting on to the 

 wire centre of each door is a moveable wooden 

 shutter, these come in very useful for a purpose I 

 will tell you of later. 



These doors are open, being latched back to the 

 walls, and are very seldom closed. Below the 

 window in each of the three centre divisions are 

 pigeon-hole openings with a shelf on each side of 

 them; on the inner side this shelf hinges up, 

 forming a door in front of the pigeon-hole, and 

 completely closing it when not required. In the 

 two end divisions the pigeon-hole is not under the 

 window, but is placed in the front looking out on 

 to the flight. 



The chief use of these pigeon-holes was intended 

 to be that in winter the doors between the flights 

 and shelters would be shut (making the latter 

 portion very warm), and yet the birds could still 

 pass in and out at will. I have found, however, 

 that the birds care little for the shelters and often 

 choose to roost outside, so the connecting doors 

 between flight and shelter are kept open all the 

 year round. 



AVe now come to the flights. The first portion 

 is under a sloping glass roof, lined with wire 

 netting for fear the glass might be broken at any 

 time and the birds escape. This glass roof is 

 rather over 5 ft. wide and is made of ground 

 glass. In spite of this I found that in summer it 

 got so hot that I was obliged to stretch an awning 

 over it (as will be seen in the photograph) on the 

 outside, for the birds seemed to find the heat 

 very oppressive, especially when a nest was built 

 directly under the glass. In the winter I move 

 this canvas down from the glass roof on to the 

 open wire roof, that forms the rest of the flight, for 

 it keeps out much of the snow and rain and helps 

 to keep the birds warm in the very cold weather. 

 Wherever this canvas is, either on the glass roof 

 or the flat wired top, it is always stretched tight 

 and nailed well down to the woodwork. 



The part of the flights that is just open wood 

 and wire is the last portion of each division to 

 describe. The wire netting all through is half- 

 inch. The front of the aviary (as shown in the 

 picture) is wire to within I5 feet from the ground. 

 At the ends the woodwork is brought one foot 

 higher. I used to have these ends open, but now 

 they are boarded up in the portion by the glass 

 roof, and covered with canvas in the part by the 

 flights. The divisions between the aviary com- 



