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Mortality amongst Goldfinches.



and partly brought up two young, but, perhaps owing to moulting

coming on, they neglected them. The cock died later in the

autumn.


Two cocks which I bought this year died about a week after

being caged. All were kept separately, and all seemed to be well

when first purchased. Usually the first sign is over-eating and then

sitting up on a perch panting, with the head under the wing. The

panting gets worse until the bird dies. It sounds like enteritis now

I write it down.


The food they have in the cage is canary-seed, Indian millet,

summer rape, teazel, and a little hemp now and again, and groundsel

as green food. They also have a piece of cuttle-bone, with brown

paper at the bottom of the cage if they live long enough. They get

very fine sea-sand—coarser as time goes on—till they are let out

into the aviary.


I have noticed that they have nothing to eat in the shops

except niger-seed, which I believe is practically poison. Trying to

change the last bird’s food gradually did not have the desired effect.


[Dr. Butler writes :


“ You are quite correct; until about 1913 or thereabouts I

was never without Goldfinches from the time when I first began to

keep birds, and I bred them without trouble; but then I used to buy

my birds from the catchers, and if I could turn them into an aviary

the same day that they were caught they were not even wild, but

settled down at once.


“ Goldfinches confined in small cages in a foetid atmosphere

and fed upon such rank, greasy food as niger-seed are very severely

handicapped, and frequently reach the hands of their purchaser in a

diseased condition.


“ I am a firm believer in hemp for these birds, and especially

when they are a little out of sorts. Goldfinches, being naturally

active, can consume more fat-making food than, for instance,

Canaries, and you will notice that when one of them dies it is

generally alarmingly thin (the breastbone almost like a knife-edge).


“ I used to give a mixture of two parts each canary and

millet (as well as millet-sprays), and one part each of German rape

and hemp, with a sprinkling of teazel or thistle-seed.



