Good anri Bad Points in Aviaries. 119 
Good and Bad Points in My Aviaries— Failures 
and their Lessons. 
By Wm. Shork-Baily. 
Tlipy s;iy in Inisini'ss tlint " notliiiif,'- siu'cecrls like 
success" ;ui(l tliis is iiiidoiihlfdly true, 1ml, in most ruses snc- 
cess is only reached after many failures, and this is cei'taiuly 
so aviculture. 
My mistakes and failures, since I first started keeping 
birds in 1909, have been many, but I am now beginning to 
reap the benefit ol these experiences, and after all, although it 
is costly, we learn more from our own failures than from read- 
ing about other people's. 
When I built my first aviary, I had the idea that if 
there were plenty of room upwards, the loftiest one I could 
get built would be the most economical and satisfactory; so 
I selected a position in the shrubbery, bounded on one side by 
the drive and on the other by a garden path. The space 
available between two lime trees was about 30 x 15 feet. On 
this were growing an acacia, chestnut, and a few shrubs. On 
inspection by my carpenter he decided that it would not be 
safe to build the aviary more than 15 feet high, so we lopped 
off the top of the chestnut tree and allowed the acacia to stick 
out through the roof. The northern end and the sides tor 
a distance of 12 feet we boarded in, thus forming an open 
shelter; the other portion of the aviary was boarded all i-ound 
to a height of 3 feet from the ground. The roof of the shelter 
was covered with galvanized iron, and half-inch mesh wire 
netting was stretched over the remaining portion of the aviary. 
It was furnished with shelves, branches of trees, nest boxes 
and a few barrels. 
This aviary was stocked with a series of Common 
Finches, Budgerigars, 'Parrakeets, Parrots, Cockatoos, Doves, 
etc. Things went very w^ell for a time, but then the Budgeri- 
gars began to nip off the legs of an odd Finch or two every 
now and again; the Cockatoos began to devour the woodwork 
and practically destroyed the chestnut tree by paring off the 
bark. It then became necessary to catch and remove these 
criminals. This we found to be anything but an easy task 
for after three of us had had an hour or more with landing 
