246 Bird-keeping. 



poles, Twites, Chaffinches, perhaps American Gold- 

 finches, and Java Sparrows, would do well together ; 

 Bullfinches and Greenfinches are sometimes spiteful; 

 Yellow Ammers might agree with the other birds ; 

 and in the summer a Nightingale, Blackcaps, White- 

 throats, Redstarts, Babillards, and other Warblers 

 might be admitted, and perhaps a Thrush and a Wood- 

 lark; but of course all these birds would require a 

 supply of their especial food, given fresh daily, and 

 placed in pans of glass or earthenware. Most birds 

 like bread crumbs, egg, mealworms, ants' eggs, oats, 

 barley-meal, fruit, and berries, and green food occa- 

 sionally. Various recipes are given for universal 

 pastes, which are to afford food equally to granivorous 

 and insectivorous birds ; but it is just as easy to give 

 the food that suits the hard-billed and soft-billed birds 

 respectively, as to make them all eat of the same 

 dish ; a plan which, of course, involves a great deal of 

 fighting over the food, and is very likely to cause the 

 starvation of the more timid inmates of the aviary. 



In selecting the birds that are to be placed together, 

 their several dispositions and natural habits should be 

 well considered, and none likely to tyrannize over the 

 others should be admitted. As a rule, birds of the 

 same size and class should be placed together ; a great 

 deal of suffering would be caused by confining com- 

 bative birds in a small space, and by giving them 

 opportunities of worrying and tormenting their weakly 



