"We have had this aviary over two years and have raised a large number of birds. All are healthy and happy, although they are out in the open both day and night all the year round. Many persons, observant of the happiness and security of our family of birds, have brought us their pets for safe-keeping, being unwilling, after seeing the freedom which our birds enjoy, to keep them longer confined in small cages. “Around the fountain are calla lillies, flags, and other growing plants, small trees are scattered about, and the merry whistles and sweet songs testify to the perfect contentment of this happy family.” Yes, these birds are happy in such confinement. They are actually deprived of nothing but the opportunity to migrate. They have abundance of food, are protected from predatory animals, Hawks, conscienceless hunters, small boys, and nature herself, who destroys more of them than all other instrumentalities combined. Under the snow lie the bodies of hundreds of frozen birds whenever the winter has seemed unkind. A walk in the park, just after the thaw in early March, revealed to us the remorselessness of winter. They have no defense against the icy blast of a severe season. And yet, how many escape its ruthlessness. On the first day of March we saw a white-breasted Sparrow standing on the crust of snow by the roadside. When we came up close to it it flew a few yards and alighted. As we again approached, thinking to catch it, and extending our hand for the purpose, it flew farther away, on apparently feeble wing. It was in need of food.

The whole earth seemed covered with snow, and where food might be found was the problem the poor Sparrow was no doubt considering. Yes, the birds are happy when nature is bountiful. And they are none the less happy when man provides for them with humane tenderness. For two years we devoted a large room — which we never thought of calling an aviary — to the exclusive use of a beautiful pair of Hartz mountain Canaries. In that short time they increased to the number of more than three dozen. All were healthy; many of them sang with ecstacy, especially when the sun shone brightly; in the warmth of the sun they would like with wings raised and seem to fairly revel in it; they would bathe once every day, sometimes twice, and, like the English Sparrows and the barnyard fowl, they would wallow in dry sand provided for them; they would recognize a call note and become attentive to its meaning, take a seed from the hand or the lips, derive infinite pleasure from any vegetable food of which they had long been deprived, if a Sparrow Hawk, which they seemed to see instantly, appeared at a great height they hastily took refuge in the darkest corner of the room, venturing to the windows only after all danger seemed past; at the first glimmering of dawn they twittered, preened, and sang a prodigious welcome to the morn, and as the evening shades began to appear they became as silent as midnight and put their little heads away under their delicate yellow wings.                                        CHARLES C. MARBLE.