io6 Practical Bird Keeping .—/. The Culture of Finches.


well-grown shrubby outdoor aviary I suspect they get a sufficient

quantity of tiny insects to meet the requirements of their progeny.


The Cardinals will build in an indoor aviary and also lay,

though they do not always do so in the nests they have constructed,

but often smash their eggs by dropping them from a branch on

to the floor ; in an outdoor aviary, however, they succeed far

better, only they require abundant living insect food from the

day that the young break the shell until about a fortnight after

they leave the nest, and the quantity which each youngster eats

in a day is generally so considerable that the supply fails and the

young are thrown out of the nest, perhaps one alone being

retained by its parents.


Finches always feed their young at first from the crop,

but the more insectivorous kinds begin to feed with crushed or

broken up insects when the young are only a few days old,

though even then they sometimes give them the food in a partly

digested condition : the young thus get triturated seeds, green

food and insects combined in a moist and easily assimulated

form: some of the larger finches also give broken-up earth¬

worms, a repulsive looking article of food which I have seen the

Pine Grosbeak devour greedily.


I must now say a few words respecting the seeds which I

have found most suitable for the commoner kinds of finches.

For the more typical Buntings, Chaffinches and Sparrows a mix¬

ture of Canary, white millet, German rape, hemp, oats and per¬

haps a pinch of linseed occasionally serves admirably ; but for

the Cardinals I have found canary, oats and hemp most suitable

with a little apple or other fruit when they will accept it; some¬

times they will not touch fruit.


The Serins and our English Einnet with its allies do well

upon canary, white millet and a little German rape or, when

moulting, a pinch of hemp: they all delight in green food, for

which the Buntings as a rule do not care much ; they are also,

perhaps, the least insectivorous of the true finches, though the}'

will accept small green caterpillars or green fly : Goldfinches and

Siskins, but especially the latter are eager for this kind of food

and need a more liberal seed-diet; thistle, teazle, and hemp, with

an occasional pinch of maw-seed being much appreciated by them.



