Practical Bird Keeping. — I. The Culture of Finches. 107


The Grosbeaks, witli a few exceptions, care little for green

food, but the larger forms require a generous seed-diet; sun¬

flower, beech-mast, hemp, millet, canary and German rape

forming a good general mixture ; berries are also eaten by some

of them ; but the smaller forms, of which the White-throated

finch may be considered typical, do well upon white millet and a

little canary seed. Waxbills, in addition to the last-mentioned

seeds like spray-millet and grass-seed in the ear, both in the

milky and ripe stage. The Grass-finches should be treated like

Waxbills although some of them never touch green food and

merely nse the grass-stems with their seed-panicles to build

with. The Mannikins also with the exception of the Java

Sparrow which likes oats or paddy rice in addition to millet and

canary, should be similarly treated.


The Weavers and Whydahs eat oats and hemp as well as

millet and canary and, as previously stated they are eager for

insects, their larvae, and spiders. The Long-tailed Whydah will

eat cockroaches at any time as also will the Grenadier and

other large Weavers. I have never seen one of these birds

eating green food.


For nesting materials hay is the principal thing, to which

may be added feathers, fir-needles, cow-hair, coarse cocoa-fibre,

and moss with white wadding; but many of the finches use hay

alone in the construction of their nests. Do not forget to supply

nesting birds with abundance of cuttle-bone, crushed up egg¬

shells or old mortar, to lessen the chance of egg-binding; and

remember at this period to supply a pan of soft-food daily with

plenty of living insect-food when necessary.


It is better, even in the case of birds coming from the

Antipodes, not to encourage them to breed during our winter

although in a heated aviary, for the young then produced are liable

to be affected by sudden falls in the temperature characteristic

of our very depressing climate and grow up weakly when they

survive at all. My Gouldian Finches would not attempt to nest

earlier than July and I had no young earlier than September, so

that there was barely time for more than one nest in the season,

but Zebra-finches will breed all the year round if provided with

nesting-materials.



