128 Practicai, Bird-Kb;kping. 



rarely-kept families of which I have had personal experience, 

 and I shall use my own experience as a peg on which to hang 

 remarks or suggestions re the treatment of out-of-the way birds 

 which I have only seen kept by others, chiefly at various Zoos, 

 which are not, unfortunately, usually good schools for high-class 

 scientific aviculture, though an absolute beginner may learn 

 much there about the keeping of hardy unkillable stuff. 



For a full account of what groups have been bred in cap- 

 tivity and their incubation periods, &c., I may refer to my book 

 "The World's Birds." 



Among perching birds, these families which are called in 

 the less modern works " Picarian " (/.(?. all perching birds other 

 than Passerines and Parrots have always been my favourites), and 

 when I went to India I was delighted with the commonness of 

 Rollers, Bee-eaters, Woodpeckers, and Barbets. and soon set to 

 work to acquire experience which might be of use to amateurs 

 not so happily situated. I found that the young of that glorious 

 creature the Indian Roller {Coracias /jidzca)— always called Blue- 

 Jay in India — were quite easily reared on cut-up raw meat and 

 cockroaches ; the cockroaches were ver}' satisfying, being of the 

 great American kind {Peripla^ieta ainericana) now thoroughly 

 established in India. The same food also suited adults, which I 

 have successfully " meated off." beginning with cockroaches with 

 the heads pulled ofiF, which leaves them helpless but kicking, then 

 going on to small dead fish and shrimps, and finally proceeding 

 to the raw meat. 



Fish and shrimps are, of course, unnatural food for thorough 

 land birds like these, but they take the place of lizards and large 

 insects, and are suitable for all birds which eat these ; Rollers 

 especially need something with hard parts in it, to form their 

 pellets, for like so many (though not all) insectivorous birds, 

 they cast up the hard parts of their food like birds of prey. 

 Rollers are not at all suited for cage-life — no birds which either 

 sit still or fly are so, unless very small — and if they have to be 

 confined in a cage at all this should be as long as possible and 

 have only two perches, as mentioned in my remarks on transport. 

 In aviaries they are charming, and the European species was 

 bred successfully in 1901 by our member Mr. St. Qiiintin, the 



