102 
My Aviary and Its Inmates 
inches in diameter by 4 inches wide. By setting the smaller in- 
side the larger, and raising the inside one, one inch from the floor, 
it is easy to see how each basin was made. 
The cost of the twenty basins — for there are ten in the 
outside flights besides the ten inside — was about twenty dollars. 
On the outside I used brass pipe and a l)rass cap for the 
short connection, and there is no waste, the water overflowing on 
the sand. 
One 10 X 10 pane in the lower sash, wliich raises outward 
and hooks back, is used as a door. This gives access to the out- 
door flights which are in dimensions 5 x <S ft. by the height of the 
roof, which is hipped with about 2 ft. overhang, giving a little 
shelter up close to the house. The rest outside is a wooden 
frame covered with | wire. The house is ceiled inside and 
painted white with cold water paint. The basins are enamelled 
white. The outside wire is painted black and the frame black. 
The roof is shingled and stained black. From the eaves down- 
wards white boards are placed upright with round moulding over 
the seams for a distance of about 5 ft. from the ground, where a 
white round moulding runs around three sides of the house, and 
below this are old-fashioned long split shiiigles. 
The house is heated by four ;5-incli water pipes running 
low against the north wall and so arranged that they can be used 
in pairs or not, as necessary. 
I planned the interior and let the architect, Mr. Oscar 
Blummer, frame around it as artistically as he could. The cost of 
the house was al)out nine hundred dollars. If I had it to re-build, 
the only improvements I would make would be to ceil it inside 
with hardwood and use wire glass and metal sash on the windows 
as the destructive bills of some of the cockatoos keep me busy 
patching it up. 
I do not like a concrete house for birds. It might do in 
some places but it is too damp with us close to the water. It 
would be all right in the winter, when the heat is on, but in the 
spring and fall the birds would suff'er. We keep the place com- 
paratively cool. In the winter the temperature ranges from 50 to 
GO, and even if it gets below that it never seems to inconvenience 
the birds. 
In winter I could not take a newly purchased bird which 
had probably been kept in a much warmer temperature, and turn 
