230



Correspondence



ELECTRIC HEATING


I should be very much obliged to any of my fellow members if they

would help me with the following propositions.


I have three aviaries, warmed in the winter with hot water pipes heated

by a coke furnace. The electric main runs past my house, so I cannot help

thinking that my aviaries might be so much more easily heated by electricity.

The question is : what is the best form to use it in ? I find the tubular heating

is not much good, and I am afraid of ordinary open small stoves, but I cannot

help thinking there must be some way of making something to go over those

to keep birds out of them and getting too near the heat. I should be very

glad to hear other people’s experiences in this matter. I also want to know

the cause of the failure to rear young birds. I have had numberless young

Canaries hatched out to all appearances quite healthy, strong little birds.

They have in most cases thrived well until they got to the stage when they

are nearly full-fledged, and then they are knocked out of the nest and die.

I have reared a few, but nothing like the number hatched. They have egg

food, sponge cake, and the usual seeds, and plenty of green food and grit.

I should very much appreciate any help in this matter.


Mabel A. Kewley.



THE KEA PARROT


In the April number of the Avicultttral Magazine you publish a letter

on the “ Kea and the imported Mynah ” (House Mynah). Unfortunately,

I have not as yet been able to study the Kea at liberty, although I have seen

a number in confinement. But I know several sheep-farmers in the “ Kea

country ”, and not one of them has seen a Kea kill or ever attack a sheep.


Some of them “ know men who have seen them ”, and a few frankly

admit they believe the whole story a myth. The “ supposed ” method of

attack is for the bird to alight on the animal’s back, flap its wing and scratch,

thus scaring it. The sheep, of course, races hither and thither and finally drops

from sheer exhaustion, and then the Kea is supposed to commit his foul deed

—I wonder ?


It may interest you to know that the Government bonus on Kea’s heads

no longer exists, consequently, far fewer are now destroyed.


I cannot quite understand the “ sheep farmer ” mentioned in your note

on Mr. Peacock’s letter, when he mentions losses through the “ imported

foxes and native ravens ”. There is no such bird as a “ native raven ” and

foxes, strange as it may seem when one considers the number of “ pests ”

that have been introduced, have never reached New Zealand, except as odd

specimens for our zoos.


S. D. Potter.



GAPES


This season I have tried the French preparation called “ Aniodol interne ”

for gapes, and have found it most wonderfully quick in its action, and on

each occasion it has cured the bird completely. It was first tried on a young

English Thrush and a young Blackbird, both of which were cured after only



