THE LORIES AND LORIKEETS. 165 



fact that these birds are nearly always treated ignorantly, and 

 that they are, as a rule, accustomed to a food {i.e., boiled rice) 

 which may perhaps be suitable to them in hot countries, but 

 which in our climate is only too hurtful. It contains little 

 nourishment, so that the birds have to eat great quantities of it, 

 and thereby incur disorders of the digestion ; at the same time 

 it soon becomes sour, and, given cold, the abundance of the pap 

 chills the stomach ; when, in addition to this, the other food 

 given on the voyage — soaked sago, bananas, and other tropical 

 fruit — fails, and our northerly kinds are given instead, fresh 

 diseases are contracted by the already sickly bird. Since I have 

 replaced the rice with more suitable food I have found, after 

 several years' experience, that the lories, on the whole, and 

 without the exception of any species, are not delicate, and 

 especially when they arrive healthy, and have been fed during 

 the voyage on stale moistened and then well-squeezed wheaten 

 bread (for example, breakfast roll or Viennese bread). Good 

 €gg-bread also is wholesome, but must only be given in 

 moderate quantities ; children's biscuits or rusks (but baked with- 

 out potash) are preferable. These articles must not be given 

 soaked or moistened in milk — not that in itself cows' milk is 

 injurious to lories, but it often happens that the cattle are fed 

 on flatulent food, such as the refuse of cabbage and turnips, &;c., 

 and then the milk may be very injurious. Hence lories may 

 only be considered as likely to live if they take hemp and 

 canary seed as their chief food. For the Broad-tailed Lories, 

 which are difiScult to habituate to seed, I have mixed crushed 

 hemp with the moistened roll, and thus accustomed them to a 

 seed diet. 



All brush-tongued parrots are accustomed to seeds the more 

 easily as they are taken young. The experienced animal dealer, 

 Fluck, of Vienna, says that, as long as lories are accustomed only 

 to soft food, they manifest a habit which makes them unen- 

 durable to an amateur — hanging on the wires of the cage, they 

 eject fluid excretions so as to make the room filthy. But 

 Scheuba says that this only happens occasionally, as, for 

 instance, after large quantities of soft food have been taken, 

 such as moistened roll or soft fruit, and that it ceases as the 

 bird becomes accustomed to seeds. As a wholesome food he 

 recommends maize boiled according to the directions given on 

 page 29, five or six grains to be given daily to each bird ; but 

 better, in my opinion, is fresh milky maize, though, of course. 



