Management of Foreign Birds. 351 



will afford much amusement and some benefit. A piece of cuttle-fish to gnaw and exercise the 

 beak upon is also to be much recommended ; whilst a piece of bread-crust, biscuit, rusk, or sponge- 

 cake may be freely given at any time, and will create a bond of affection between the Parrot 

 and his owner. Fruit is harmless when very ripe and quite free from acid. Walnuts or filberts 

 are useful and beneficial. Bread and milk are, at the best, fattening, and at the same time liable 

 to give diarrhoea, and worse if they should turn sour. The practice of giving meat or chicken-bones 

 to some Parrots I consider peculiarly unfortunate. Parrots are strict vegetarians, and any animal 

 food seems to me opposed to their natural habits. I would as soon give meat to a Parrot as 

 dose a dog with brandy. It can only stimulate abnormally and unhealthily, and thus produce evil 

 effects, such as irritation of the skin, &c. 



With proper food, sufficient room, and convenient opportunities, very many kinds of Parrots, 

 when acclimatised, will breed in confinement, and most Parrots are infinitely more hardy than is 

 generally supposed. 



The Lories are a large class of Parrots — mostly of extraordinary beauty of plumage, and 

 living, in their natural state, on flowers, from which they extract the honey by a peculiar 

 arrangement of the tongue, and on fruit, nipping a few seeds at times. As regards keeping 

 them in confinement, I am tempted to give Punch's advice to people about to marry — Don't. 

 These birds are, without exception, costly and delicate, and to provide them with suitable food 

 rarely succeeds. Boiled rice, with sugar and fruit, is practically almost the only food many will 

 touch at first. If their keeper succeeds in inducing them to eat, first soaked and then dry, sponge- 

 cake, a great step in the right direction has been gained. Canary-seed should always be in the 

 cage, and possibly the Lories will take to it some day, in which case their chance of enduring 

 for some years is immensely improved. Blue Mountain Lories take most readily of all Lories 

 to canary-seed, and become fairly hardy birds if fed on seed while on board ship. But even in 

 their case a little sponge-cake daily is almost indispensable. Blue Mountain Lories are the only 

 kind of Lories bred so far in confinement. In one case the fortunate breeder attributed his 

 success to a liberal supply of the soft shoots of Virginian creeper. I tried Blue Mountain Lories 

 with the same delicacy, and they refused to touch it. About these well-known and most 

 enduring species of Lories opinions are therefore still very much divided. 



The idea that tropical birds should be kept night and day, summer and winter, in a hot- 

 house temperature is a great error. Even in the tropics the nights are sometimes chilly, and 

 a healthy bird can endure a great change of temperature without harm or inconvenience. 

 What does harm to cage-birds is vitiated or foul air, draught, and absence of sunshine. Sun- 

 shine is the very elixir of life for all birds, and cages should be so placed, or aviaries so 

 arranged, that the birds have the full benefit from early morning to afternoon of every ray 

 of sunshine which our English climate affords. Open aviaries must be protected to the 

 north and west, to keep out the cold northerly winds and the driving rains from the west. 

 Garden aviaries open on all sides, through which the wind can blow from all quarters, are 

 instruments of torture, but easily made comfortable by being boarded on the .north and west 

 sides. Black japanned wire allows the birds to be seen much better than brass wire or 

 galvanised wire. Water should be always fresh, clean, and in sufficient quantity for bathing 

 whenever the bird feels inclined to bathe. As a wet floor of a cage or aviary produces foul 

 smells, and often gives the birds colds, the water is best given in a small earthenware 

 saucer, placed inside a larger saucer of the same material. If there be two inches space 

 between the rims of the saucers, the outer vessel will take nearly every drop of water splashed 

 by the birds, leaving the floor of the aviary sweet and dry. 



