132 Practical Bird-Keeping. 



Tlie only observation I have been able to make on captive 

 Trogous is that they hop when moving on the ground, not 

 waddling like Bee-eaters or most Kingfishers. I should recom- 

 mend anyone keeping them to hang up bunches of grapes or 

 berries in their aviary, as the fruit-eating forms, like the Cuban, 

 which are the only ones we are likely to get yet awhile, dart out 

 and pluck their fruit on the wing as if taking insects. They 

 would need a covered nest-box, as they breed in holes, and 

 though more active on their feet than many short-legged birds, 

 are eminently not birds for small cages. 



Kingfishers are very easil}^ obtained in India, and I have 

 hand-reared the common species — much commoner out there — 

 the beautiful Pied {^Ceryle rudis) and the great Stork - billed 

 (^Pelargopsis giirial) ; all Kingfishers are easily brought up if one 

 has fish to give them and can stand the yells and smells they 

 generate. When they are reared, however, the difiiculty begins, 

 as they knock themselves about in a cage, and in an aviary are 

 generally too quarrelsome for even a pair to live together, though 

 individuals of different species will do so. For aviculture, there- 

 tore, the best species are the well-known Laughing Jackass 

 {Dacelo gigantea) and the Sacred Kingfisher (//rt/rj'c?^ sancta) both 

 birds of which the pair will live together, and land-feeders, so 

 that they will do well on raw meat, to which must be added such 

 items of food as mealworms, mice, small fish and large insects. 



From the point of view of a very large proportion of 

 aviculturists who mu.st perforce be content with small accom- 

 modation, the most desirable group of the Picarians or non- 

 passerine perchers is the family of Humming-birds ; while hardly 

 any family surpassas them in intrinsic interest, owing to their 

 tiny size in so many cases, their frequently wonderful colours, 

 and their pre-eminent adaptation to flight. This would at first 

 seem to put them out of court for most aviculturists, but the fact 

 is, that their speciality in flight is rather active evolutions in a 

 small space than remaining long on the wing, which they do not 

 do, according to those who have observed them wild. This 

 facility in circumscribed flight could have been studied with 

 great advantage in the case of a pair of Prevost's Hummer 

 {Lainpomis prevosti), which, alone out of a consignnient of 



