i8o 



am assured this would have succeeded, but business 

 took me away from my birds for nearly two da3^s, the 

 result was the young bird suffered for want of food, 

 from which cause it died the following morning. 



The parent birds were most energetic feeders, so 

 I am convinced the only thing lacking was insufl&ciency 

 of live insect food. No difficulty would be experienced 

 in breeding and rearing these most interesting of 

 aviary pets, if a plentiful supply of live insects could 

 be assured. 



You can, however, imagine it was impossible for 

 me to do this when about thirty other insectivorous 

 birds occupied the same aviary. Whenever I placed 

 mealworms, gentles, etc., within sight, they were 

 greedily eaten by the other birds, before the Cowbirds 

 had much of a chance to carry any to their young. 

 It was, however, a most interesting sight to watch both 

 the Cowbirds, with a gentle exposed in their beak, 

 alternately entering the nest and as hurriedly leaving 

 it, after having disposed of the insect, to fly again to 

 the food tin for others. 



The Ruddy-shouldered Cowbird is one of the 

 most interesting of aviary pets, and as the Editor has 

 already recorded in Bird Notes, Vol. V., No. 8, Nov. 

 1906, such an accurate and able description of this 

 species, it would be futile for me to attempt to further 

 describe them. I should like to add, my experience 

 with this species exactly coincides with that article. 



The food to which my birds have had access is, 

 canary, millet, oranges, bananas, apples, pears, insec- 

 tivorous food, both dry and moistened with boiling 

 water; they sampled the lot. They were always in 

 perfect feather, except during the moult ; the beautiful 



