176 
My Latest . \-c'iarics. etc. 
builder to do the concretins;- of shelter floors, a little lime- 
washing and tarring-; so that it is not surprising that eighteen 
months were occupied in ereirtion and fitting up, as I could not 
by any means de\-ote my whole time to it — the worst part of all 
was, perhaps, the excavation of the foundations and the getting 
of corrugated iron sheeting, two feet into the ground all round 
the flight, and though in the end this was satisfactorilv 
accomplished, I never want to undertake such a task again. 
The ground I was able to spare for the aviaries is al)out 
one fifth of the open space of my garden and the putting up of 
the aviaries involved much alteration of the garden arrangemenl, 
and to save the plants, etc., the two jobs had to proceed 
concurrently, and one had to p.iuse in aviary construction to 
make good borders, etc. 
I had a piece of ground available about eight\ feet long 
by thirty-five feet wide, independent of the aforementioned 
outhouses, which, after careful consideration, I decided to utilise 
as shown on the Groiuid Plan. 
T finally decided to use natural wood with the bark left on 
for all framing standards, and, after much delay, secured a 
quantity of chestnut and oak, varying from 5 inches to 7 inches 
in diameter. After cutting these to proper length I stripped the 
bark off the portion that had to be sunk into the ground, and 
well soaked them in creosote .and after procuring about 1,000 
feet of 2in, by _'in. cpiartering and giving this two coats of 
creosote, I was ready to make a start on actual erection. 
Again 1 had carefully to consider matters, for there was a 
need to jirovide some accommodation for the renmants of my 
Mitcham collection of birds by a given date, and I finally 
decided to put u]) the three small aviaries first for this purpose, 
as 1 proposed using three standing outhouses, eacii 8 feet x 8 
feet and 6 feet high, as shelters. Then I was faced with another 
problem — rats were continuously about the garden and in the 
outhouses, and the putting of corrugated iron sheets into the 
ground was not sufiicient protection for this trio of aviaries. T 
came to the conclusion that nothing short of putting small mesh 
wire-netting under the whole area (360 sup. feet) of the flights 
