THE SPARROW KIND. 



should be fed every two hours. Their food should 

 be sheep-hearts, or other raw flesh meat, chop- 

 ped very fine, and all the strings, skins, and fat, 

 taken away. But it should always be mixed with 

 hen eggs, boiled hard, upon which they will feed 

 and thrive abundantly. 



They should then be put in cages like the night- 

 ingale's back cage, with a little straw or dry moss 

 at the bottom ; but when they are grown large, 

 they should have ants' mold. They should be 

 kept very clean, as indeed should be all singing 

 birds whatsoever, for otherwise they will have the 

 cramp, and perhaps the claws will drop off. In 

 autumn they will sometimes abstain from their 

 food for a fortnight, unless two or three meal- 

 worms be given them twice or thrice a-week, or 

 two or three spiders in a day ; they must like- 

 wise have a little saffron in their water. Figs 

 chopped small among their meat will help them 

 to recover their flesh. When their legs are cramp- 

 ed, they should be anointed with fresh butter, or 

 capon's fat, three or four days together. If they 

 grow melancholy, put white sugar-candy into 

 their water, and feed them with sheep-heart, giv- 

 ing them three or four meal-worms in a day, and 

 a few ants with their eggs. They should also 

 have saffron in their water. 



With regard to adult birds, those that are taken 

 before the twenty-third of April are accounted 

 the best, because after that they begin to pair. 

 They usually haunt woods, coppices, and quick- 

 set hedges, where they may be taken in trap- 

 cages baited with meal-worms. They should be 



VOL. iv. s 



