92



Correspondence



troubled with mice should make a few of these box traps, and I know they

will bless our late editor for giving us his secret, as I have done.


I have just come across a most efficient cat trap which I hope to describe

fully later on. Cats, I think, are the greatest pest we aviculturalists have

to deal with, especially where one keeps birds about the garden in a state

of semi-freedom.


W. H. Workman.


Lismore, Windsor,


Belfast.



PHEASANTS WITH OTHER BIRDS


In the January issue of the Avicttltural Magazine I made a statement

that ornamental Pheasants could be kept in aviaries with small birds and

that nothing untoward would happen. Mr. Spedan Lewis in the February

issue very kindly sends a warning to aviculturists. He kept a Peacock

Pheasant cock with a very valuable Elliot’s Pitta ; after a month or so of

perfect harmony, the former killed the latter. Perhaps I ought to have

qualified my assertion, for it would seem that in some cases this may prove

an expensive experiment. But in support of my statement I may be allowed

to say that this instance of the Peacock Pheasant cock killing this beautiful

Elliot’s Pitta is the first instance that I have heard of a deliberate murder

under similar circumstances. But I will admit that when I suggested this

procedure I certainly ought to have added that valuable and rare small

birds should not be exposed to the danger that I suppose must be present,

when they live constantly with birds of much larger build and in some cases

furnished with dangerous spurs. My remark applied to the commoner

Budgerigars, Finches, etc.


In the case of Peacock Pheasants, these very harmless looking little

pheasants, delightfully garbed as they are in quaker -like grey, are at times

most vicious and anything but peaceful. I also have good cause to know this.

I once ran a five-month old P.P. cock with seven four-month old Amherst

chicks. I was away from home the day I made this move and on my return

in the evening I discovered that four of the poor little Amhersts had been

murdered by the Peacock Pheasant cock. I will add that although I have

found that I can mix all species of ornamental Pheasants when young, the

one exception is the P.P., these I invariably keep in separate aviaries.


I am very glad that Mr. Spedan Lewis was thoughtful enough to warn

us, I might have received an account for the loss of some valuable small birds.


P. J. Lambert.



CHERRY FINCHES


Had I been as unfortunate in either the keeping or the breeding of birds

as, on his own showing, Mr. A. G. Butler appears to have been, I would

certainly have given up aviculture in despair long ago. But that is not to

say he is always wrong in his statements and, in the case of Cherry Finches,

I venture to suggest he is more correct than Mr. Boosey who, in the February

Magazine, questions Mr. Butler’s description of these chastely beautiful little

birds as “ one of the hardiest and most easily managed of Australian

Finches ”.


Though my own experience in keeping and breeding a number of birds

of this species can hardly be as extensive as Mr. Boosey’s, so far as it goes it



