14 PRACTICAIv Bikd-Kkeping. 



wrong : they seemed to be getting light-headed, flying aimlessly 

 abont and striking the netting or hanging head downwards from 

 the roof of the aviary. I caught up two or three and replaced 

 them in the warm aviary where they recovered, but the rest 

 died. The fact was I had turned them into hot-house flowers 

 and at the first breath of our chilly May weather they simply 

 withered away. 



Nevertheless, for wintering delicate foreigners and for 

 singing birds I find this little house invaluable and I think it 

 quite likely tliat, if these Warblers had been cooled ofi" gradually, 

 they would have turned out much better. 



On the whole, I think the best system for small migrants 

 is that which I have described as " some-heat," although this 

 practically means that most of my birds spend much of the day 

 in the heated house and roost at night in a bush in the open. I 

 hang up brushwood close to the roof in tlie house and let them 

 take their choice. Some roost in and some roost out: prol)ably 

 every bird knows what suits its constitution best. At all events 

 after an extensive trial I find the system answers well. 



One word as to management. One constantly sees advice 

 given to beginners to keep insectivorous birds in separate aviaries. 

 I regard this advice as quite mistaken. It seems to me that the 

 more soft-bills are mixed up with hard-bills and distrii^uted 

 amongst the different aviaries the better : by this method we get 

 less fighting and whatever food supplies the aviaries afi'ord in the 

 form of live insects are fully taken advantage of. 



Feeding. 



There is probably no subject on which aviculturists dififer 

 more than that of the feeding of insectivorous birds. This alone 

 shows that we have not yet devised a good system of feeding, 

 i)ecause, if there were such a system, everyone would adopt it. 

 As a matter of fact I do not believe that more can be done with 

 insectivorous birds to-day than was done a couple of centuries 

 ago. In the first avicultural article I ever wrote (I think it 

 appeared in the Zoologist in 1SS7) I showed that the Swallow 

 was successfully kept in a cage through a whole winter more 



