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fancier ? One of Dr. Creswell's autliorities on Chinese 

 customs says they are there fed on dried flies and husked 

 millet, and the other says he has never seen a dried fly in China. 

 This is tautamount to saying insectivorous birds are fed on 

 husked millet. I wonder what you, sir, wouUl have thought of 

 me, if I had fed the little vSedge Warbler you gave me some 

 years ago on such food ? You would certainly have thought I 

 was a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. A vSkylark might live 

 on such food, but I doubt if any bird less hardy could. 



I should like Dr, Creswell to try this diet on one or more 

 of the eight little Warblers that migrate to this country in the 

 summer, and then give his verdict as to whether they are 

 delicate or hardy. Gentles they might live on for a time. As 

 for dried flies, many soft-billed birds will not touch them. 

 Those we get in this countr}' have a nasty .salt taste, and I 

 believe are what are called the water bug and are caught by the 

 natives in nets on the water at night. I hope Dr. Creswell will 

 get ns some fuller information from China as to the feeding of 

 insectivorous birds, so that we ma}' be able to keep the most 

 delicate to their natural length of life when in confinement; 

 by so doing he will greatly further the interests of avi- 

 culturists. Arthur Jones. 



Mr. Jones quotes the opinion of a well known writer on 

 aviculture in support of the use of egg, and because this 

 gentleman possesses a doctor's degree, he assumes that his 

 opinion on a medical question is equal to that of Dr. Creswell. 

 I have all due respect for Dr. Butler as au ornithologist, but 

 lie is not a doctor of medicine, nor a medical man at all, so 

 that his opinion on a medical point is of no more scientific 

 value than that of Mr. Jones himself. The Sedge Warbler 

 incident, which I had quite forgotten, took place seven or 

 eight years ago, and at that time we were all alike wedded to 

 the ^^^ treatment. The Sedge Warbler in question was, I think, 

 the last survivor of some half dozen small Warblers I had 

 purchased a few weeks before, so the egg treatment was not 

 remarkably successful. I have abandoned the use of egg for 

 more than six months, and ni}' insectivorous birds are doing 

 splendidl}' without it. Egg may, or may not, be a desirable 

 addition to the dietary of insectivorous birds— I am strongly 

 of opinion that it is not — but to say that it is in any sense a 

 necessity is to state what is contrary to fact. 



It is a pit}' that Mr. Jones has misrepresented Dr. 

 Creswell's statement about the feeding of insectivorous birds 

 in China. H. R. Fir.r.MKR. 



