110 
My Aviary (Yorls) and Birds. 
more especially so— though the writer's aviaries have been 
largely given up to soft -bills of late years. 
In conclusion, I would add that these notes have pur- 
posely been left of a cursory character, as the writer hopes 
at no distant date, some other pen will tell the alluring story, 
in full detail, of their domestic life and a family success- 
fully reared under alien skies. Also some member, perhaps, 
will describe them as inmates of the bird -room. 
f 
My Aviary (Yorks.) and Birds. 
By Mrs. R. E. Wbthey. 
At our Editor's request I am sending in two photos 
of my little aviary, which is a very unpretentious affair 
compared with most of those which appear in our Journal. 
The sleeping house was built as a summer house and 
is fitted up with old tree trunks and branches ; nesting boxes 
and husks are hung from the roof, etc. At one time I lined 
the wails with banks of heather and hay, which made it very 
cosy, but, it also made such a splendid and much appreciated 
nesting place for mice tha,t I had to clear it all out. 
On to the side of this house we had a covered flight 
made, the front of which is fancy wire -work, and the whole 
side is half-inch mesh wire netting, with windows, (three 
separate sashes) which can be taken down in hot weather; 
there is a similar window which is put up at night and in 
bad weather over the front wire-work of this Uight. The 
floor is cement. Slates were put down, all round, before 
the cementing was done, so as to keep out rats and mice, but 
the field or garden mice walk in through the wire -netting of 
the outer flight. In the covered flight are some tree trunks 
and branches as roosting accommodation. 
As will be seen by the photo ("as now") an open 
flight of half-inch mesh wire-netting and wood-framiiig runs 
along the length of the house. 
The inmates of the aviary are: 
Cockateels, Budgerigars, Java Sparrows, Pekin Robin, 
Zebra Finches, Silverbills, Cutthroats, Black -headed Manni- 
kins, pair Indian Red-eared Bulbuls, and Red-faced Lovebird. 
I had a pair of the Red-faced Lovebirds (Agapor7iis 
jnillaria) but, sad to say, the hen died in a tit some four 
