304 



must be strained and wiped in a cloth to keep them from 

 sticking together. 



Tits and Reed Warblers require different treatment. Ants' 

 eggs make the best food for them. They must be quite free 

 from rubbish, be taken up in the tweezers a few at a time 

 and put well down into the throat of the j'ouug birds, just as 

 their parents would do with their bills, (differing much in this 

 respect from the finches). They also require to be fed 

 much ofteiier than the latter, every ten or fifteen minutes at 

 the outside, and several times a day the helping of ants' eggs 

 should be dipped iu water, as the live insects with which their 

 parents would have supplied them contain a good deal of 

 of moisture and the ants' eggs of course are very dry. Any 

 suiall insects that can be found are good for these birds, but 

 should be killed before they are given them. This can be doue 

 by pinching their heads with the tweezers. Ants' eggs will 

 form the staple food when they are able to feed themselves, 

 but they will also take a little puppy biscuit softened in milk 

 or water, or a little bread and milk, though it is apt to make 

 the cage rather dirt}', for wliicli reason the ants' eggs are 

 preferable. The Tits will also eat hemp and sunflower seeds 

 and pick at a bit of suet. W. T. Greene. 



THK CORRECT vSHAPE FOR PERCHES. 



Sir, — Please convey to Mr. McDonagh my thanks for his 

 paper, though I do not follow him with his circular thin perches, 

 which are continually being condemned. I want to see what 

 other members have to sa}'. I take this opportunity of thank- 

 ing you for your post mortem notes, and to state that as two 

 thirds of my birds have died this last year without egg, this 

 year I intend to use desiccated yolk of egg, and note the result. 



John Acutx. 



[jNIr. McDonagh was perhaps not very clear in expressing 

 his meaning as to " thin " perches. Like Mr. Acutt and my- 

 self he believes in perches of various sizes — that I know for a 

 fact; he used the word "thin" in contradistinction to the 

 broad flattened Y>e:\c\\, yN\nc\\ is unlike anything in nature to 

 which the birds' structure has been adapted. 



With regard to the egg question and the mortality in Mr. 

 Acutt's bird room. Out of five birds which I have received 

 to examine for him during the past year I find, on reference to 

 my reports, that four died of pneumonia, and one of general 



