5



either remedy. I took about half a yard of new flannel and

heated it as much as I could without burning it. Whilst the

flannel was getting hot, I put the bird into a dish containing

about an inch of cold water, carefully supporting her head

with the hand in which I held the bird. After one or two

minutes’ immersion I wrapped the bird in the hot flannel, and

left her undisturbed for about lialf-an-hour. In each case I

thought I should find my bird dead on undoing the flannel

wrapper, instead of which she had laid a soft egg, and seemed

perfectly recovered and all right again, fit to be put back

into the cage. At various times I found the shells of several

perfect eggs in the cage, and do not know whether these eggs

were laid by the red-lieaded or the sickly black-headed hen.

But I believe the tyrannical, impetuous black-headed cock turned

cannibal and ate those eggs as soon as they were laid, leaving me

only the broken shells.


During the winter my four birds kept in very good health.

Their cage stood in my sitting room. I took no special pre¬

cautions as regards temperature, and the room was thoroughly

aired every morning by opening the windows irrespective of the

weather prevailing. I think it is a great mistake to cover a

bird cage at night, and therefore never do so ; but we should be

very careful so to place our bird-cages that they are never even

for a moment in a draught.


About February my Gouldian finches began to moult.

Their appetites remained good, and except that the black-headed

cock was less aggressive and less pugnacious than formerly, there

was very little change in their habits or manners. The formerly

sickly hen quite recovered.


But month after month passing without the moult being

completed, I came to the conclusion that there must be some¬

thing wanting in the food, and that canary seed and millet were

not a quite sufficient substitute for their natural food. I tried

sesame seed, but the birds though occasionally picking up a

grain did not care for it. Green food, such as lettuce, groundsel,

watercress, etc., they would not touch or look at. During a visit

to South Wales, I remembered that my Gouldians were really

Grass finches and I gathered stalks of about a dozen different

kinds of grass then flowering. But not one of these would my

birds touch. I tried slices of apple, banana, and greengages,

very ripe fruit in every case, but the Gouldians would not eat any.


A lady to whom I had presented a pair of Gouldians wrote

to me that her birds were in magnificent colour and ate sugar.



