126 POPULAR OFFICIAL GUIDE. 



egrets, ibises, and the lilce, the housing of perching birds, 

 birds of prey and the parrots, presents few difficulties. But 

 the wealth of fine water birds in North America alone, and 

 the interest attaching to them, seem to justify the labor 

 and expense that have been involved in this building and 

 its appointments. 



The Small Flying Cage. — The dimensions of the building 

 are 63x50 feet. Its whole central area is occupied by a 

 large cage 16 feet wide, 38 feet long, and 16 feet high, filled 

 with a choice mixed collection of flamingoes, brown pelicans, 

 swans, egrets, storks, ibises, and ducks. The bottom of the 

 cage contains a spacious poo! of running water, surrounded 

 by banks of sand and gravel. 



Along the side walls of the building are two rows of cages, 

 seven on each side, which contain groups of birds that are 

 closely related to each other. Usually, each cage is filled 

 with birds of the same group. These cages also contain 

 running water, and an abundance of gravel. In the center 

 of the series along the eastern wall is 



The Diving-Bird Tank. — This is a large aquarium tank 9 

 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 4 feet deep, with plates of glass 

 1 inch in thickness on the front and both ends. It is filled 

 with clear water, in which the movements of diving birds 

 under water may be studied in detail. This exhibition calls 

 special attention to the darters, penguins, puffins, auks and 

 other birds that have been fitted by nature for life and 

 activity under water, and by which even the flightless spe- 

 cies procure an abundant supply of food. A penguin under 

 water is a sight to be remembered. This feature was copied 

 from the London Zoological Garden. 



In order to suggest the haunts of the water birds inhabit- 

 ing the Aquatic Bird House, to give distance, and to elimin- 

 ate the dead walls which never seem so sadly out of place 

 as behind cages filled with living creatures, the walls behind 

 the side cages of the interior have been very artistically de- 

 corated, in oil colors, by Mr. Robert Blum. The entire 

 western wall is occupied by a tropical landscape represent- 

 ing a scene on the edge of the Florida everglades, while the 

 eastern cages have for a background a northern marsh 

 scene, highly suggestive of the marshes along the Shrews- 

 bury River, New Jersey, with the Navesink Highlands in 

 the distance. The artistic effect of these landscape back- 

 grounds is very pleasing. 



Inasmuch as the water birds shown in this building are 

 the same species that have been described in the section 



