14 INTRODUCTION. 



Buits, but it is not necessary'. The standard food is hemp-seed 

 ground in a coffee-mill, and bread crumbs scalded and mashed 

 up together, and fresh every day. They are very fond of ripe 

 ])ears and elder-berries (but elder-berries stain the cage very 

 much), currants, cherries, honeysuckle, and privet-berries. 



Professor Rennie says, " I have more than once given the 

 blackcap and other bu-ds a little milk by way of medicine 

 when they appeared drooping or sickly, and with manifest 

 advantage *." 



BREEDING OF TAME BIRDS. 



House birds, being most of them reared like canaries, can 

 only be made pair with great difficulty. When this object is 

 accomplished, all of them require a large quiet place, a whole 

 room if it can be had, in whicli branches of pine should be put, 

 — a place, in fact, as much as possible resembling their natural 

 abodes. But should you succeed in this respect, as you can 

 never procure the materials which form the general base of 

 their nests, it is better to give them artificial ones, made of the 

 bark of the osier, straw, or even turnings of wood, in which it 

 is only to put the soft stuff for lining, such as wool, the ravel- 

 ings of silk, linen, or cotton, and the birds will take possession 

 of it. 



It is of consequence that the food for paired birds, and for 

 the different ages of their young ones, should be chosen with 

 judgment. I shall mention what must be done in this respect, 

 in the articles relatmg to the different species of birds which I 

 am going to describe in this work. 



I must not omit two interesting observations which were 

 communicated to me by a lady of my acquaintance. It some- 

 times happens, during a dry season, that the young birds are 

 not hatched on the proper day, or are in danger of not being 

 hatched at all ; if, in tliis case they are plunged for one minute 

 in water about their own warmth, and then re-placed under the 

 bird, the effect will be as quick as it is successful t. 



For the same reason, sometimes the young birds remain 



* White's Selborne, 8vo. edit . 1833. 

 •f S«« Rennie's " Habits of Birds," p. 1 3.--TRANsr- 



