31 



preventive means.* These pests not only eat the best of the birds 

 food, but what is left is rendered totally unfit for the delicate 

 stomachs of the legitimate occupants of the aviary. It is a well 

 ascertained fact that seed soiled by the emitted moisture of these 

 troublesome little rodents is absolute poison to birds, and care must 

 especially be taken not only that these intruders be kept out of the 

 bird-room, but that infected seed is not accidentally introduced from 

 the seed merchant. Almost while writing these notes I have had to 

 send back a bushel of canary seed, which had most evidently been 

 contaminated, and the seedsman simply said that he was " afraid the 

 mice had got into the bin, but thought it did not matter very much 

 so long as he cleared the seed of the husks they had left ! " It is still 

 an open question whether mice actually attack and kill the birds,f 

 aviculturists of great experience holding views on totally opposite 

 sides, but it cannot possibly be disputed that at least they disturb 

 them, and for every hen that is frightened off her nest in the night- 

 must be counted, the loss of one brood. It is therefore absolutely 

 imperative that the breeding room must be free from such intruders. 

 If they cannot be kept out of the room by stopping up their holes 

 with cement, or lining the wainscoting with zinc, they must of course 

 be trapped by some means. It then becomes necessary in the first 

 place to set the traps in places where the birds themselves cannot get- 

 at them. In a flight room this is easily effected by putting the traps 

 inside loosely wired cages into which the birds cannot enter. When 

 the birds are kept in separate breeding cages, the cages should be, as in 

 Germany, wired sufficiently closely to be mouse-proof. Possessed with 

 the importance of the necessity of the subject, I have allowed myself 

 a long digression, which I trust will be excused, and which Ihoje 

 will be of value to some who may have been inclined to treat these 

 important subjects too lightly, but I must now " return to my muttons.'' 

 It will be remembered that I had been advocating the method 

 pursued by the German breeders in familiarizing their charges with 

 the presence and friendly interference of their keepers from the time 

 of their first moult to the time of their going to nest. The period will 

 then have arrived when the birds will act according to their own 



* See Publisher's remedy, also best traps extinct sold. 

 The Publisher has proved that mice will kill cage birds, and is quite ceriain that it 

 is a common occurrence where mice are in quantities. 



