FOR CAGES AND A VI ARIES. 7 



been observed to visit their nest, in which were five 

 young, and assuming that one of the little ones only 

 received an insect on each occasion, that would give a 

 fraction over nine minutes between each morsel, which is 

 about the usual method practised by soft-billed birds. 

 Surely we cannot do better than imitate Nature as closely 

 as we can, especially as long intervals between heavy meals 

 are apt to produce indigestion with its accompaniments of 

 flatulence and diarrhoea, and too often premature death. 



In taking young birds from the parents, many well- 

 meaning people contend that one or two only should be 

 removed from the nest, as the old birds fret and mourn, 

 or even die from a broken heart from their loss ! It is 

 an amiable idea, but none the less a fallacy. Birds very 

 quickly reconcile themselves to the inevitable, and although 

 they undoubtedly make a noise and evince other signs 

 of distress, when the nest is taken, or is robbed, to 

 use a favourite expression of the lookers at, as opposed 

 to the keepers of birds, their grief, if they are capable of 

 such a feeling, is very short-lived ; for, if carefully watched, 

 they will be found starting to repair their loss the very 

 next day, seemingly quite oblivious of the past. But the 

 readiness with which many birds forsake their eggs, and 

 even their callow young, is proof positive that the good 

 people who attribute their own feelings and sentiments 

 to the birds in parallel circumstances, fall into no incon- 

 siderable error. 



Many fanciers treat their birds incorrectly; but that is an 

 error that knowledge will rectify, and this can be obtained 

 in two ways by sad experience, or from books, written 

 expressly for them by those who have previously gone 

 over the same ground and proved every step of the way. 



The following work has been written for the welfare 

 of the birds kept and the advantage of their keepers, and 

 is now presented with every confidence, both by writer 

 and publisher, that it will answer that purpose. 



It may be as well to say, that other British birds exist 

 over and above those mentioned in the following pages, 

 but although we have high authority for the statement 

 that "every kind of bird is tamed and hath been tamed 



