140) Keeping of SofthiJls in Cages 



very little fuel, about 2s. a week, whereas the gas-bil!! 

 least said about it the bette". To provide for moisture, a 

 small tank filled with water put on top of rhe stove keeps 

 evaporating day and night. On very mild days T open the 

 window at top and close the door of the room, and during the 

 night reverse the order of things, so there is always plenty 

 of fresh air, and as my cages are arranged round the room, 

 no direct draughts strike on the birds. No bird -room should 

 be without a minimum- and maximum -registering thermometer, 

 as it is very important to know how much the temperature 

 falls during the night. 



My method of feeding is simplicity itself, provided 

 you can carry it out regularly and systematically. You cannot 

 give soft -bills a supply to 'last them several days, as the food 

 would turn bad. You must give them their daily ration at a 

 fixed hour in the morning. All the year round T give the 

 Stock-mixture, described in a previous article, as a basis, 

 for this reason. If you want to keep your birds during the 

 summer months till autumn on live foods only, first of all 

 you will have to carefully and gradually get them used to 

 same, a little at first, increasing the quantity day by day, and 

 vice versa fwhen live food is getting scarcer in the autumn, 

 to get the birds used again to stock -mixture. Now, although 

 you may take precautions for a continuous supply of live 

 ants -eggs during the season, it may happen that through stress 

 of weather the supply fails for a week, and what happens? 

 If your birds have been used to nothing else but live ants- 

 eggs for say a month, and you all of a sudden put stock - 

 mixture before them, their digestion gets upset, it is all over 

 with song, soft-moult may set in, and you will have some 

 losses to mourn; therefore take the lesson, never let them be 

 without stock -mixture, sprinkle live ants -eggs on top, and 

 if they should have to go without them for a short time, there 

 is no danger of losing any birds. The above applies to adult 

 birds which have been caged some time; freshly caught ones 

 must be fed differently, and " meated off " before they get 

 used to any prepared food. When at large they feed on nothing 

 but live insects, and in the autumn some eat berries; they will 

 therefore not touch any but live food, and the process of 

 gradually weaning them from live insect food to prepared or 



