The flying school has now been Operating for a month or two, and some birds have been restored to health and strength and freed already. "Within a few yards are meadows and woodland, so that the situation is ideal for their release. Other birds have suffered damage to their wings, but will be allowed to fly away when they have recovered and can fend for themselves. Meanwhile they have at their disposal room for short flights, a floor of rat-proof concrete with a small grass plot and a tree in the centre, shrubs, an inclined ladder for hopping exercise, swings, baths and water for drinking, food-tables, nesting-boxes—in fact everything that could be thought of for the comfort arid convenience of the guests.
Sharing the same aviary is a hen thrush with profusely spotted breast, so tame that she will sit on anyone's finger. She was found last winter in Kensington Gardens, lying in the snow and nearly. frozen, with: one leg badly hurt and blind in one eye. The thrush has been here six weeks and can now: fly a little, and it is hoped she will some day be well enough to be given her freedom. If not, she will have a home here: for the rest of her life.
"This is, as will be apparent, not only a flying school but an infirmary. In a large loft is a jackdaw. It flew into a house, and the owner, seeing its weakness and poor condition, sent 3 the bird here. It cannot use its wings properly and is still very weak. A more recent admission is an owl, brought in with a seriously injured eye. Mr. Frank Gilbert the full-time custodian of the birds, is nursing the owl solicitously, bathing its eye with a lotion frequently, keeping it in a basket during the day and freeing it at night in a large room, A young blackbird with an injured bill is being hand-fed in a cage. Some pigeons which for a time were among the inmates can now take care of themselves, and have been set free. They still haunt the exterior of the flying school.
"The flying school hab two other large aviaries, besides the one given'
the song birds. In them at present are a parrot, canaries, three little Bengalese finches, and half a dozen budgerigars. It is impossible to re-Jease these foreign birds without con-dernning them to speedy death, in all probability, and they will therefore continue as permanent boarders of the R.S.P.C.A. The parrot is here because its previous owner, when she moved from a house with a garden was unwilling to deprive the bird of such freedom as it had enjoyed in the garden. The Bengalese finches were brought by a woman who wished them to have all the liberty possible. The budgerigars had been left to starve in an empty house, and were rescued by the police, The flying school was initiated by "Miss M. Bradish, of Chiswick. The idea came from an aviary which a bird-lover has built near Neufchatel, in Switzerland, with the same humane Object. The school at Thames Ditton is the first of its kind in Britain, though Frances Lady Warwick has a large aviary in which 200 foreign birds enjoy all the happiness possible "under conditions of captivity.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.