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H. N.—Natural versus “ Cleaned ” Seeds



and sit and sing his little Boiler song with his absurd little head and

tail on one side and if I entered the aviary, he would perch on my

head, still singing most lustily ! One day a friend suggested that

Bullie should have a wife, and kindly lent me a lovely hen. The pair

were transferred to a larger aviary and were naturally quite alone.

Mrs. Bullie quickly went to nest and laid five eggs. I was greatly

excited although I never saw my bird take the least notice of the

fair lady ; however, when nothing appeared from the nest after she

had been sitting for three weeks I took a look at the eggs and all were

clear ! Mrs. Bullie would, I firmly believe, have been still sitting,

had I not assured her it was useless ! So she was restored to her rightful

owner, and my naughty little bird is now back in his cage, beside his

Canary pal, and is as happy as possible and declares he has no use

for wives or changes of air and much prefers singing his little songs

to me !



NATURAL VERSUS “ CLEANED ” SEEDS


By H. N.


Your gesture that notes on “ common ” birds are wanted I suppose

also means that the “ common or garden ” members of the Association

may express their views without appearing “ clever ”. When I go to

the corn dealer I hear so much about cleaned or polished, or double-

polished or cleaned seed that it makes me think. You see, my aviaries

are quite small as things go, are wooden floored, at the top of the

garden, and I have home-made hoppers for the seed and give them

a shake each day so that the seeds scatter on the “ dirty ” floor and the

dear vulgar birds with such wretched table manners actually appear

to relish the food better from the floor than from the table. I buy

cheap grass seed at 2s. a stone : this I think is nothing more nor less

than stable loft sweepings cleaned and riddled and the birds, despite

the frightful price charged for the cleaned seed I supply, actually

seem again to prefer this stuff. At times I get a sack of these sweepings

unscreened direct from a stable loft and put that in the aviaries and

the birds, “ dirty little beggars,” and the foreigners are just as bad

as the British birds, seem to revel in this dirty stuff. A friend in the



