and Aviaries 203 



outside a nesting-box, before you were scarcely aware 

 that the parents meant business ; and these successful 

 broods are often marred by too many inmates, who 

 poke about with inquisitive eyes and meddling bills, 

 spoiling half the fun. 



There are meddlesome birds as well as people ! 

 And there must be plenty of nesting sites, that is, 

 more than there are pairs of birds that are likely to 

 take notice of them, because what suits one bird 

 doesn't suit another ; just as when a married couple 

 are hunting for a house, one that pleases the wife 

 because it has a pretty garden doesn't find favour with 

 the husband because it isn't within anything like a 

 respectable distance of a decent pack of hounds, &c., 

 ad lib ! 



So, too, with budgerigars and cockateels and other 

 couples who have plighted their troth. 



The cock bird has evidently set his heart on one 

 particular cocoa-nut or hollow log, and is constantly 

 viewing it, popping in and popping out, and fidgeting 

 backwards and forwards, to which his wife pays very 

 little attention, and promptly goes and lays an egg in 

 exactly the opposite direction, perhaps down in a 

 corner on the floor of the roosting-house ; whereat he 

 says, " Really these women are beyond a joke," and she 

 says, " How selfish men are ! " not seeing that he was 

 doing his best to choose her the nicest room in the 

 aviary. 



And the consequence was — the eggs were addled ! 

 and the world said — but that's neither here nor there ! 



What is more to the point is this. 



