REARING OF AMERICAN BIRDS FROM THE NEST. 165 



to attend to them so often, keep them in a dark 

 place, as they will not be so impatient for their 

 food as when kept in the light. 



Feed Thrushes and other large birds, that eat 

 worms and insects, on meal and milk, mixed 

 with a bit of lean beef, minced fine, or meal 

 worms, or maggots, or small earth worms, if 

 clean, (but, as they are in general full of earth,) 

 I prefer the beef. For Finches, and other small 

 birds, take a piece of stale, wheat bread, soak it in 

 water, then squeeze the water out ; put it in a pan, 

 with some new milk, and boil it well until it is 

 about the thickness of paste, and mix with it 

 some hemp, or rape seed, or millet, bruised in a 

 mortar, or on a table with a rolling-pin. And 

 for other small birds, which eat insects, mix with 

 it, some meal worms, or maggots, chopped fine, 

 or ant's eggs, which my young friends in the 

 country will know where to find. And if they 

 will observe what the old birds are fond of, and 

 especially what they feed their young with, and 

 procure some for theirs, they will be the more 

 successful in rearing their birds. 



