68 PRACTICAL Bikd-Kkeping. 



grasshoppers are most iimnerous, but only in certain districts, 

 while crickets seem only to abound in the kitchens of old houses: 

 yet why locusts, which are a plague in the tropics, are not dried, 

 deprived of their legs, heads, and wings, and ground into meal 

 as food for cage-birds, is a mystery : surely they would pay for 

 importation. In meadows of long grass where grasshoppers 

 occur, they might be swept up with a butteifiy-net, emptied into 

 glass bottles, and turned out for the delectation of an aviary of 

 insectivorous birds. This reminds me of the value of the 

 entomological sweeping net, of canvas on an iron ring, for 

 collecting quantities of small insects, their larvae, and spiders, 

 from weed-filled ditches and hedgerows : sweeping the herbage 

 with a net of this kind one secures a vast store of insect-life in a 

 very short time ; and, for Warblers and other small birds, a 

 collection of this kind is invaluable. 



The Cockroaches {Blatiarics) are excellent food for all in- 

 sectivorous birds, although some birds will only accept them in 

 the very young larval stage; the commonest form Periplaueta 

 ameiicana may be easily captured in hundreds with the ordinary 

 so-called beetle-trap. In Madagascar a gigantic species is com- 

 mon and if imported and bred in a greenhouse would tioubtless 

 be most useful for feeding the larger species such as Mynahs, 

 Bower-biicis, Crows, &c. It is a most curious insect with feet 

 padded like those of a cat, for which reason I gave it the generic 

 name ^hiropoda ; the largest specimens are from 69 to 73 

 millimetres in length, and 31 to 34 millimetres in width at the 

 widest part of the body, or the size of a tolerably large mouse. 



The plant-bugs, with the exception of the Aphides (green- 

 fly) are not generally much liked by birds, but there are excep- 

 tions, as in the case of the so-called Water-boatmen (^Coiisidce) 

 ot which vast quantities are imported from Mexico under the 

 name of ''dried flies" and form an ingredient in all the best 

 insectivorous mixtures put upon the market. I believe these 

 insects are chiefly caught when flying over the water in the 

 evening in dense clouds ; but the presence of small fish among 

 them shows that they are followed by the net even after their 

 return to their native element. It is probable, I think, that 

 Cicadas woidd also be acceptable to birds, but I have had no 



