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On the poor wild birds.



During one hard winter, when every scrap of food was fought

for in my garden and the Starlings seemed likely to secure almost

every scrap while the weaker but more pleasing birds could scarcely

obtain a morsel, I set a caravan-trap and speedily caught thirteen

Starlings, which I turned into a large cage and fed during the winter,

releasing all but one (a remarkably well-formed cock bird) in the

spring ; that gave my other garden visitants a better chance of survival.


At the present time we are ordered to be economical in the

matter of food, and if I had not always been a small eater (excepting

when on a steamer crossing to the Continent) the present price of

food would alone he sufficient to make me so ; but, with all care in

the consumption of edibles, there must always be a certain amount

of refuse—fat, skin, bones, burnt crusts, and odds and ends of

vegetables, all of which are eagerly welcomed by the fowls of the

air, and which, if placed in a pan, need not disfigure one’s garden.


Perhaps bones and half cocoanuts suspended below branches

and pergolas are not particularly ornamental, but they are a great

boon to Titmice and are easily removed at the end of the winter;

moreover, it is a pleasure to watch the little acrobats feeding. By

the w T ay, when the two halves of a cocoanut have been cleaned out

by the birds, they can be taken down, filled with melted fat, and

replaced ; the Tits are equally pleased with the latter, and I suspect

that it is more sustaining than the nut.


If one has many insectivorous birds there is always quite a

lot of yesterday’s food left in the various food-receptacles ; and this,

if placed in a pan out of doors is eagerly pounced upon by the wild

birds and devoured to the last crumb. One winter I caught far more

cockroaches than I needed for my insectivorous birds; so, after

taking the few I required, I put the beetle-traps outside and they also

were soon cleared of their contents.


Excepting when snow has fallen very heavily, there are always

some seeds to be obtained from dead weeds, grass-panicles, etc.,

which rise above the surface; nevertheless, all seeds for wffiich one

has no use are welcome to our winter visitors. At one time I used to

have many seed-samples sent to me, some of which I should hesitate

to give to aviary birds, but they were gratefully accepted by their

wild brethren. I am rather shy of giving niger-seed (of which I still



