Food for Foreign Birds. 34q 



A healthy bird should be plump but not fat. To avoid fatness — which generally ends in 

 consumption — exercise and green food are the best safeguards. Fresh chickweed or groundsel 

 should never be absent from a bird-cage in the summer-time ; but if the green-meat be wet from 

 recent rains, it should be dried before giving it to birds. The common grass growing by the 

 roadside, when in bloom, is of immense value for some Australian Finches. 



Cuttle-fish (Latin, ossa sepia) is a white chalky substance, the backbone of a fish, and 

 sometimes found on the English sea-coast, but more frequently on the coast of the Mediter- 

 ranean. The pieces are of elongated elliptical shape, from six to twelve inches and more in 

 length. A small piece of cuttle-fish, or, better still, a very thin slice, easily cut with a sharp 

 knife, is greedily picked by birds, and helps their digestion greatly. Cuttle-fish is obtainable 

 at most bird-shops, or from wholesale druggists. Apothecaries and chemists only keep the 

 powdered article, which is useless for birds. 



Soft-food birds are the next category of our feathered friends whose larder must be provided 

 for. But here the difficulties of an amateur increase largely, and much judgment and forethought 

 are required. All insectivorous birds are great eaters, if the food is always before them. In 

 their natural state, however, these birds have to hunt and struggle for every morsel of food. On 

 the one hand they have a vast amount of exercise while searching for food, and on the other hand 

 only just one morsel at a time. Caged birds cannot have so much exercise, and therefore 

 their diet must be lowered accordingly. For years past I have fed my soft-food birds with 

 more than average success on the following diet : — First thing in the morning they receive 

 a small quantity of sop, consisting of stale household bread soaked in water over-night ; the water 

 is pressed out by hand ; with the wet bread about one-third of its volume coarse Scotch oatmeal is 

 mixed, and a little boiled milk poured over the whole. Care should be taken that not more 

 milk is added than the bread will completely absorb, and retain even if placed on a strainer. 

 I have never known this mixture turn sour within the twenty-four hours. An hour or two 

 later I give a mixture of German paste, dry bread-crumbs, ants' eggs, currants, and either fresh 

 boiled eggs or preserved yolk of eggs ; and about mid-day, Starlings, Thrushes, &c., get a few- 

 morsels of raw beef cut very fine indeed, whilst the smaller birds receive a few live meal- 

 worms. 



German paste can be bought readily and of very fair quality in most bird-shops. It 

 consists of peameal, a little maw-seed, more or less hemp-seed crushed in a coffee-mill, mixed 

 with a very small quantity of treacle and a little lard, the whole being gently heated in an 

 earthenware vessel, and continually stirred until hot, when it is spread on a paper or cloth and 

 allowed to cool. This preparation will keep for weeks, and to make or buy a week's supply at 

 one time is quite safe. 



Ants' eggs are, as is well known, not the eggs but the larva; of the ant. They are 

 largely collected in Germany and Russia, and dried either in kilns or bakers' ovens. Properly 

 dried, the ants' eggs remain good for a year or more. In England there are fewer insects — 

 ants included — than on the Continent, owing, probably, to the damp climate. The ants' eggs 

 are collected by keepers and used fresh for the rearing of young pheasants, partridges, &c., 

 but never, as far as I know, are English ants' eggs kiln-dried and sold in that state. The dried 

 ants' eggs, as well as the currants, should be soaked for a couple of hours in water, and then 

 strained previous to being mixed with the German paste. 



Preserved yolk of eggs is a German preparation but lately introduced to English bird 

 keepers and breeders. Millions of fresh fowls' eggs are broken annually for the sake of the 

 white to manufacture albumen, an article used in printing muslins, &c. The fresh yolk being 



