British Birds. 25 



lay one young bird, half eaten; in the nest were two more 

 young, and one egg with a young one in it, the egg shell 

 had been torn oijen, and the bird was of course dead, having 

 been bitten. Of the two others in the nest one had a wing 

 bitten off, the other had escaped injury, was still alive and 

 able to move its legs, but was almost cold, evidently the 

 mice had been doing their destructive work only a short 

 time before 1 got there; .certainly within a quarter of an hour 

 this bird would have been dead also. However, I took the bird 

 and thought 1 would try the experiment of rearing at this 

 age. I kept it in my warm hands until 1 reached home, by 

 which time it was becoming quite lively. I had two Tree 

 Creepers at that time, which I was rearing and which were 

 pen feathered. I dropped the newly hatched one into this 

 nest, with the other two, and by so doing, I was able to 

 supply it with just the natural warmth necessary and within 

 a short time the naked youngster was holding its head up and 

 mouth open for food. 



I supplied it with small, green catterpillars from beds 

 of nettles, also with small " Daddy-long-legs," small moths 

 and a very small beetle found upon the trunks of trees. 

 I do not know the name of the latter, but in colour it looks 

 as if it had been painted with a bright yellowish -green powder, 

 like gold paint, only green, it is about the size of a Ladybird. 



The insects mentioned being exactly the same kind of 

 food as supplied by the old birds in a state of nature, I 

 was therefore rearing on the same lines as the wild birds, and 

 the youngsters did well from the commencement and grew 

 rapidly. I gave it nothing but this live food, until it was 

 twelve days old, then its inenu was increased by fresh live ant 

 eggs, and small mealworms (bruised), soon after giving the 

 latter, I reduced by degrees the catterpillars, &c., and when 

 it was three weeks old I began to feed the bird with small 

 quantities of my insectivorous food, " Life," in addition to 

 live food. As soon as he was full grown and could look after 

 himself, I placed him (for it was a cock bird) in one of my 

 aviaries, with the two other Creepers reared at the same time. 

 I was obliged to clip off the points of the two centre tail 

 feathers m order to be able to recognize him from the other 

 two. 



