10 MY FOREIGN DOVES AND PIGEONS. 
men started, be your own Clerk of the Works, be 
constantly about to see they are carrying out your 
directions in your way, and think nothing of 
climbing up ladders to inspect those portions not 
seen from below. If you fail to do this you must 
not be surprised at all sorts of drawbacks cropping 
up. For instance, in both the aviaries I have 
already described the gutter along the back is far 
too narrow. In the one aviary there is a risk of 
smashing the glass roof when the gutter is 
cleaned, because, between the wall and glass roof, 
the gutter is not wide enough to allow a man to 
tread along it easily, and in the other aviary (the 
last I have described) the gutter was so narrow 
that in a heavy storm it could not take the water 
fast enough, with the result it overflowed and came 
through the back of the aviary, running down the 
wall and making the tiled sanded floor most un-- 
pleasant. This I have since had remedied. 
When I built the aviary I am now going to tell 
you of I was wiser, I had bought my experience 
dearly, so I thought and planned out how I should 
like it, and then had the builder, Mr. Walker, of 
Sheffield, over to see me, and had a talk with him 
and gathered an estimate as to what it would cost. 
Mr. Walker (who is a wood and iron structure 
builder on a large scale) was very interested in my 
building and made some excellent suggestions as 
to ventilation, etc. The aviary was built at 
Sheffield in sections and just put together with 
bolts and screws on arriving here. 
This (No. 3) aviary is a long way my favourite 
of them all. It was put up in the spring of rgo1, 
and was at first intended for parrakeets. The 
best site I could find in our old orchard was 32 ft. 
x 22 ft., the longest side facing south. It is a 
pretty situation, with a tiny artificial streamlet 
running in front where many water-lilies and iris 
grow. Overshadowing the eastern end is a 
picturesque old spreading apple-tree with a seat 
running round its trunk. 
From my width of 22 ft. 1 cut off 6 ft. (on the 
north side) to form a passage running along the 
whole length of the aviary, and from each end of 
this I took off 63 ft. That at the eastern end 
forms the entrance to the aviary and is fitted with 
shelves, etc., into a little store-room, while that at 
the western end forms a small extra diviston for 
birds. The centre part of the passage contains 
the stove for heating the place, and is invaluable 
in many ways that I will mention later. 
This left me with a piece of ground 32 ft. x 
16 ft., and this J divided into 5 divisions, each 16 
ft. long by 63 ft. wide (the centre one is just a trifle 
smaller than the others). Each of these compart- 
ments forms a separate aviary to itself, and is 
divided into three parts, namely, a shelter, glass- 
roofed portion and open flight. The three centre 
compartments are entered by separate doors from 
the passage, the two outer ones by doors from the 
seed room, and from the little extra aviary at the 
western end. 
In this way there is no fear of the birds 
escaping, and also one need not pass through all 
the aviaries to reach any special one, each having 
its own entrance. This is especially useful in the 
case of nesting birds, which must not be disturbed. 
The little seed, or store, room is fitted with 
shelves for numerous articles, and a curtain of 
washing print hangs in front. There is also kept 
here a galvanised seed bin with five divisions. The 
centre one is very much the largest and holds two 
bushels of dove mixture (wheat, dari, hemp, and 
a little rice), the other divisions hold a bushel each 
of Italian millet, Indian millet, hemp, and canary. 
The brushes, water-can for filling the baths, etc., 
dust-pan and other articles for daily use are hung 
on nails on the walls, and behind the door is a 
rail for the aviary cloths, where they hang to dry. 
There is a window at one end, and directly under- 
neath it a good-sized wooden shelf that makes a 
capital table, and screwed to one end of this is an 
‘Enterprise’? cutter (Spratt’s) that has been used 
for vears, and is as good as when I bought it. I 
find it most useful for grinding biscuit and egg- 
shells, and the size of the pieces may be regulated 
by means of a screw. There is nothing about it 
to get out of order, and where there is much 
grinding of food stuffs to do a machine of this kind 
is almost a necessity. 
The passage is lighted by two windows, and 
between these stands the stove, the pipe of which 
goes through the roof. The stove is an ordinary 
closed one and has a little door at the bottom for 
raking out the ashes and another small door in the 
front top for poking the fire. But I find if the 
fire is poked through this door there is danger of 
cracking the fire brick lining (as the poker is 
obliged to be held slanting), so I had a lift-up door 
made in the flat top of the stove, and through this 
the fire can be stoked or poked in safety. 
I burn the same coke in this as in my other 
aviary, and now and then in a close stove like this 
one the coke is given to ‘‘cake’’ and stick in a 
hard mass to the fire brick inside. If this were 
‘not regularly chipped off it would in time block up 
the interior of the stove, but it needs doing care- 
fully so that the fire brick is not injured with the 
poker, and cracked or chipped. 
I find this stove very useful in times of sickness, 
for a bird may be placed near it at night and be 
kept warm till morning, or sometimes in a case of 
collapse hot pieces of flannel are needed, and 
while the little invalid is wrapped in one piece 
