GAGE AND SINGING BIRDS. 
Jl 
each other, will he all the more likely to give due attention 
to the music lessons. 
A Store Cage, with wooden back and sides, wire front, 
and cloth or calico top, made about two feet long*, and six 
inches high and wide, will be found useful to put newly 
caught birds into ; having no height to fly, they cannot well 
burt themselves. 
THE AVIARY. 
This should be a building erected expressly for the piu'- 
pose, and fitted with a stove and pipes for conveying the 
heated au' through every part of it, so as to keep up an even 
temperature through the most inclement weather. The best 
materials for its construction are iron and glass, resting on a 
basement of brick or stone : the recent application of the two 
former of these materials to hot-houses, conservatories, and 
other structures of combined use and ornament, proves their 
perfect applicability to this purpose. The best kind of floor 
is, perhaps, an earthen one, beaten hard, like the floors of 
some barns ; bricks are too cold. Planks would do very well 
if care is taken to keep them sweet and clean, so that they 
could not harbour insects nor retain disagreeable smells : 
one disadvantage attending the use of a wooden floor is that 
it is likely to form a covert for rats and mice. The roof of 
the aviary should be semicircular, or shelving, with vines or 
flowering creepers trailing over it, so that there shall be a rustle 
of green leaves steeped in sunshine, and air laden with sweet 
perfume, to delight the birds within. The building should 
face to the south or south-west, and open upon a green lawn, 
shrubbery, or e-arden. Within, around the sides and up the 
centre, should oe dwarf shrubs and creepers for the birds to 
nest and build in. Perches and little wicker baskets, with 
horsehair, wool, and other building materials, should be 
placed at various altitudes ; and if there could be a small 
fountain playing in the centre, with a basin for the songsters 
to bathe and drink at, the water of which would be con 
fitantly changed and fresh, we should have a perfect 
home of song, an abiding place of beauty, love, and happi- 
ness ! This, our heau ideal of an aviary, could not be ac- 
comphshed but by wealthy bird-fanciers, and we set it up as 
