217



An Avicultural Medley.



were like dormice, and could tuck themselves up warmly and sleep

through the cold weather, or if, like insects, they could be frozen

hard and then thaw out unharmed in the spring, one could under¬

stand their staying behind.*



AN AVICULTURAL MEDLEY.


By Dr. Maurice Amsler.


There is a shortage of potatoes, sugar, wheat, and mealworms.

Now the Editor tells us he has come to the end of his copy. This

must be my excuse for inflicting my fellow-members with a few

notes of very doubtful interest. Last year some derogatory remarks

by secretaries on the gentle as a bird-food caused me to take up my

pen with the idea of vindicating this gentle larva (no pun intended);

the note was written, but was not deemed worthy of a penny stamp.

Now that mealworms are as scarce as ever, their importation from

Holland having been stopped (they were really Huns I am sure),

the lowly gentle must be the chief stand-by of those who keep

insectivorous birds or who wish to breed almost any of the seed-

eaters.


A gentle, when in a fit state for bird consumption, is prac¬

tically free from smell, and is neither slimy nor in any other sense

“ loathsome.”


I have reduced the breeding of gentles to an almost automatic

science, and as the methods employed are extremely simple, I propose

to describe them for the use of anyone who cares to follow them.


In the first place I prefer gentles grown on feathered media_


i. e. giblets and other poultry offal; also young sparrows, which can

be caught by the dozen in a Wyatt’s trap.


Fish is extremely smelly, and meat is inclined to dry up,

causing the death of the gentles.


Insects are not necessarily killed by intense cold, as all beetle-collectors know ;

when they dig up frozen turf in hard winter, thaw it in front of a fire and

bottle the insects as they run out. I have also picked up butterflies (lured

out by a warm winter’s day) lying frozen hard on the snow, and they have

recovered speedily indoors.



