FOR CAGES AND AVIARIES. 141 



situation is very often discovered through her over-anxiety 

 to defend it. 



The young can be reared without the least difficulty on 

 ants' eggs (Romans' for preference) and small insects 

 of all kinds. A pair of pliers with long narrow blades 

 should be used for dropping the food into their widely- 

 gaping, yellow mouths, and they require attending to 

 about every ten minutes from dawn to dusk ; a mouthful 

 or two at a time will content them then, but if they are 

 fed at longer intervals and are given more food at a time, 

 they will be very apt to contract indigestion. 



The males begin to sing as soon as they can feed 

 themselves, and until they do so, they are better kept in 

 a small basket with a lid. When hand-reared they be- 

 come exceedingly tame. Many artificial foods are recom 

 mended for the Nightingale, but nothing is so good for 

 them as a diet consisting for the most part of ants' eggs, 

 to which mealworms, blackbeetles, bacon-beetles and 

 other insects are added. Soft food is apt to stick to the 

 corners of the mouth and give rise to troublesome sores. 



In the autumn they eat elder-berries and those of the 

 privet and ivy, and a little lettuce or tender cabbage may 

 also then be given. If flying loose in a conservatory, the 

 food should always be placed in a cage, so that the bird 

 can be shut in when required. The floor of the cage 

 may be covered with garden mould, previously dried, or 

 sawdust, and the perches must be kept very clean, or 

 the birds will soon have sore feet. 



The Nightingale is very fond of bathing, and should 

 have a shallow pan or saucer of water placed for it on 

 the floor every morning; but it should not be allowed to 

 "tub" in the cage, which would thus be rendered damp 

 and uncomfortable. 



A tame Nightingale will never know an hour's uneasi- 

 ness if fed and treated as advised. But sometimes a 

 fancier may buy one that has not been judiciously treated, 

 and may find that it prefers the unwholesome messes to 

 which it has become used, to the correct diet that he sup- 

 plies it with. In that case he must not stop the former 

 abruptly, but supply the new along with it, and if a few 



