FOOD OP TAME BIRDS. 13 



sometimes they will peck out the meat and leave the paste ; at 

 other times they will eat the paste and leave the meat ; bu4 in 

 general they eat it all up together, particularly where several 

 different species are kept together in the same large cage, a plan 

 which I consider by far the best, as they amuse each other, and 

 keep one another warm in cold weather. Besides the above 

 food, an egg should be boiled very hard, the yolk taken out 

 and crumbled or cut in small pieces for them ; the white they 

 will not eat. One egg I consider enough for twenty birds for 

 one day, with their other food, it being only intended as a 

 change of diet, which they will not continue well in health 

 without. 



The sorts, which feed on insects when wild, should have 

 some of these preserved for them through the winter, except 

 where they can be procured at all seasons. At a baker's shop, 

 for instance, there are always plenty of meal-womis, crickets, 

 and cock-roaches, of which most of these birds are very fond : 

 when those are not to be procured, a good substitute is the 

 large white grubs that produce the cockchafers, which in some 

 years are very plentiful, and may be kept in pots of turfy- 

 earth through the winter, as may also the maggots of the blue- 

 bottle fly, if procured late in the autumn ; and they may be 

 generally had as late as December. A quantity of these, kept 

 in a pot of turfy earth in a cellar, or any other cool place, 

 where they may not turn into flies too soon, is, I think, one of 

 the best sorts of insects, and easiest kept and procured, for such 

 birds through the winter. They will not touch them until 

 they are well cleaned in the mould, but are then very fond of 

 them, and a few every day keeps them in excellent health, and 

 provokes them to sing. 



HON. AND REV. W. HERBERT'S FOOD FOR SOFT-BILLED 

 BIRDS. Milk, which Mr. Sweet recommends, I have found 

 very fatal to many of the soft-billed birds, and I never give it ; 

 but the blackcaps do not seem to suffer from it. They are 

 very fond of a boiled carrot mashed and moistened, or beet-root 

 boiled and mashed. A boiled carrot will keep fresh many days 

 in a basin of cold water, and is an excellent substitute for fruit 

 in feeding them. Boiled cabbage, cauliflower, green peas are 

 good for them ; all sorts of puddings ; a very little roast meat 

 minced, I give them every day, and a little yolk of egg when it 



