THE NIGHTINGALE. 21 ^ 



In confinement, meal worms and fresh ants' eggs are the first things 

 x^?hich should be offered to birds which are just caught ; in place of these, 

 when it is not possible to procure them, some persons prepare a mixture 

 of hard eggs, ox heart, and white bread, some mouthfuls of which they 

 force the birds to swallow, and then throw some meal worms on the 

 rest, to induce the nightingale to eat it ; but this artificial food is so unfit 

 for these birds, especially at first, that it kills the greater number. They 

 may also be injured by forcibly opening their delicate beak. When ants' 

 eggs cannot be procured, it is better to set the birds at liberty than thus 

 to sacrifice them. Their best food in summer is ants' eggs, to which are 

 daily added two or three meal worms * ; when none of the former remain 

 fresh they must be supplied by dried or rather roasted ox heart and raw 

 carrot, both grated, and then mixed with dried ants' eggs-f*. The carrot, 

 which may be preserved fresh in sand in the cellar, prevents heat in the 

 stomach and bowels ; a little lean beaf or mutton minced small may also 

 be used sometimes ; after different trials, it is in this way I feed my 

 nightingales. The cheapest food is very ripe elderberries, dried and 

 mixed with ants' eggs, in the same way as the carrots and white bread. 



Some bird-fanciers, iu winter, bake a little loaf made of the flour of peas 

 and eggs, which they grate, moisten, and then mix with dried ants' eggs ; 

 others, who would still be more economical, pound poppy-seeds iu a mortar 

 to express the oil, and then mix them with the crumb of white bread ; when 

 accustomed to it the birds seem very fond of it, but a proof that it does not 

 agree with them is that they soon fall into a decline and die. This plan 

 has lately been introduced into Thuringia ; but knowing, as I do from ex- 

 perience, that the stomach of the nightingale is not formed to digest such 

 food, since he is not graminivorous, I take care never to administer it ; and 

 I think T ought to warn others against it. The best will always be the 

 simplest, and that which is most conformable to nature. Those who adopt 



* The means of always having a plentiful supply of meal worms is to fill a 

 largre earthenware or brown stone jar with wheat bran, barley or oatmeal, and 

 put into it some pieces of sugar paper or old shoe leather. Into each of these 

 jars, of about two quarts in size, half a pint of meal worms is thrown (these 

 may be bought at any baker's or miller's), and by leaving them quiet for three 

 months, covered with a bit of woollen cloth soaked in beer, or merely in water, 

 they will change into beetles ( Tenebrio Moliior, Linnaeus). These iftsects soon 

 propagate by eggs, which renew and increase the number of maggots so much that 

 one Mich jar will maintain a nightingale. — Author. 



t Many persons who are not in a situation to buy ants' eggs (improperly so 

 called, since they are the pupae in their cocoons), will d-oubtless be glad to know 

 the method used for getting them out of the ant-hill. A fine sunny day in summer 

 is chosen, and, provided with a shovel we begin by gently uncovering a nest of the 

 large wood ants {Formica rufa, Linnaeus), till we arrive at the eggs; these are 

 then taken away, and placed in the sun, in the middle of a cloth whose comers 

 are turned up over little branches well covered with leaves. Tlie ants, in order 

 to protect the eggs from the heat of the sun, quickly remove them under the 

 shelter which is prepai -"d for them. In this manner they are easily obtained freed 

 from dirt, and from the ants also. In the absence of a cloth a smooth place is 

 chosen, around which some small furrows are cut, over which the branches are 

 laid, which leads to the same result Author. 



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