2 FOREIGN FINCHES IN CAPTIVITY. 



in the latter the usual door, fitted with a double spring, should be 

 placed. Tanagers especially should be thus protected against cold 

 winds ; a very good addition, in the case of these and all delicate birds, 

 would be a muslin blind to draw tightly over the front in cold weather. 



As regards food on the journey, hard-boiled egg and potato, with 

 ripe fruit when procurable, would be far preferable to sour oranges ; 

 but to anyone visiting America, by far the best plan would be to take 

 out a dozen large tins of Abrahams' food for insectivorous birds, and 

 give it daily, mixed with an equal quantity of stale bread crumbs and 

 boiled potato chopped up or passed through a masher. I am satisfied 

 that, by attending to warmth and diet, Tanagers might be readily 

 imported. 



Like the true Finches, Tanagers build open cup-shaped nests, often 

 neatly made, and with a good deal of moss in the outer wall. Their 

 eggs are spotted, especially at the larger end, with various shades of 

 brown or lavender, on a white, greenish, or brownish ground- tint. 

 Although the adult birds, when not nesting, are most frequently seen 

 in flocks among the higher trees, the nests appear to be generally 

 placed in the forked branches of low trees or shrubs, probably because 

 in such a position they are less exposed to the violence of stormy winds. 



I do not believe that a very high temperature is necessary in order 

 to keep Tanagers in health : the principal things to attend to are, 

 avoidance of draughts and of unnatural food. Wiener marvelled that 

 his Tanagers died in a few weeks, although he kept their cages in a 

 hothouse, surrounded with palms and shrubs. If I were a caged bird, 

 it would not be a great consolation to be constantly reminded of the 

 foliage of the tropics, or whilst condemned to hop up and down 

 incessantly on a hard perch with no yielding in it, to see all around 

 me the elastic leaves and branches upon which I ought naturally to 

 be swinging to and fro. 



Most, if not all, tropical birds can be so far acclimatized as to do 

 well in a temperate atmosphere, but the steamy air of a hothouse 

 containing growing plants, would undoubtedly be injurious, unless 

 plenty of ventilation, without draught, could be supplied. 



But there is another point of interest to be considered in respect 

 to Wiener's treatment of Tanagers. He tells us that they " should be 

 kept on Nightingale food, with a little crushed hemp-seed. Sweet, 

 over-ripe pears and bananas, or very sweet grapes, should be given as 

 much as possible, together with a few meal-worms." 



Wiener does not explain what Nightingale food is, but another 

 writer for the same work says that it "is capable of great variation, 



