170 TFE POULTRY-BOOK. 



substances in large quantities, on account of their tendency to 

 render them inconveniently fat. 



It is highly advantageous to fowls to allow them a reasonable 

 quantity of animal food for their diet. It should be fed to them 

 in small pieces, both for safety and convenience. Bones and 

 meat may be boiled, and the liquor, when mixed with bran or 

 meal, is healthy, and inexpensive. 



Insects. Fowls will readily eat most sorts of insects. They 

 have a decided liking to flies, beetles, grasshoppers, and crick- 

 ets, and grubs, caterpillars, and maggots, are held by them in 

 equal esteem. It is difficult, however, to supply the poultry- 

 yard with sufficient quantities of this species of food, but enough 

 may be provided, probably, to answer as luxuries. 



Where silk-worms are raised in great numbers, there is 

 always abundance of the pupae after winding off the silk, not 

 required for breeding purposes, and these are good for poultry. 

 Caterpillars, in their season, are also numerous, and easily 

 secured. M. Parmentier says that too much insect food is not 

 wholesome. 



Dickson recommends that pailfuls of blood should be thrown 

 on dunghills when fowls are allowed to run, for the purpose of 

 enticing flies to deposit their eggs, which, when hatched, pro- 

 duce swarms of maggots for the fowls. With the same view, 

 any sort of garbage or offal may be thrown out, if the dunghill 

 is so situated that its exhalations will not prove an annoyance. 



M. Reaumur mentions the circumstance of a quantity of 

 wheat, stored in a corn loft, being much infected with the cater- 

 pillars of the small corn moth, which spins a web, and unites 

 several grains together. A young lady devised the plan of 

 taking some chickens to the loft, which devoured the caterpil- 

 lars without touching a single grain of the wheat. 







