Choice of Site. 91 



especially, of that solicitude so essential to their welfare is- 

 likely to be engendered ; while on the other hand close 

 proximity, above all should there be many children, may, 

 with all their custodian's care, prove the cause of great and 

 irrevocable mischief. Total isolation, again, in the recesses 

 of a deep, secluded covert, renders the birds so nervously 

 sensitive that they are apt, upon the shghtest unexpected 

 excitement, to lose all self-control, dash about, and thus risk 

 eggs, limbs, and even life. 



" Our pens are placed within five yards of, and parallel 

 to, a leading carriage drive, a thoroughfare daily in use. 

 From earUest youth, therefore, the birds are more or less 

 inured to the ever-changing sights and sounds incidental to 

 ordinary traffic. Their thus seeing and hearing all going on 

 around gradually enables them to acquire such an amount of 

 courage that curiosity usurps the place of fright, the cocks 

 crowing joj'ously yet defiantly, while the hens peer inquisi- 

 tively, yet fearlessly, through the lattice of their harems. 

 'J^he pens should be sufficiently shielded by trees, so as to 

 insure in very sunny weather a grateful shade ; nevertheless,, 

 too much leafy shelter is a})t to prove provocative of damp 

 and cold. They should also, while enjoying a southern 

 aspect, be well protected from the east wind. Thus placed, 

 the birds are better left without any well meant but fanciful 

 attempts at further increasing their comfort. The little- 

 matters above enumerated excepted, the more they are exposed 

 to the elements and permitted to rough it, the healthier and 

 more robust thej' will become. 



" As in our present case here, so it frequently occurs that 

 insufficient space militates against that annual shifting of 

 aviaries on to new ground, so often recommended, and upon 

 which, so far as my experience serves me, where the utmost 

 attention to scrupulous cleanliness has been observed, 

 unnecessary stress is laid. 



" After the laying season, when our birds have availed 

 themselves of the liberty accorded them, the pens are 



