56


vSiR, — I feed my soft-bills chiefly on Gaspariii's Food. My Whindiat;

now nearly three 3'ears old, has always been fed entirely on it, and she has

taken numerons prizes at Shows. Besides the Whinchat, I have iised it for

feeding Blackcaps, White-throats, Robins, Redstarts, Wheatears, and Pekin

Robins, but I find that Nightingales, ChifFchafFs, and Wagtails do not care

for it.


I take a shilling packet of Gasparin's, add to it one third its bulk of

dry ants' eggs, and, having mixed it well, take as mvich as will last for one

day and make it quite moist with boiling water. On three days in the week

I add to it, when cold, either watercress, lettuce, or the leaves of gi'oundsell

chopped very fine, — as I find that the soft-billed birds do not otherwise eat

green food, which I consider good for them.


When I first began to keep soft-bills I tried dried flies, yolk of egg,

and more than one advertised mixture ; but I found that the birds did not

look so healthy upon any of them as they do upon what I now give them,

and I consider it more economical.


As a rule, I give six to eight mealworms a day to each bird, but some

birds take more. My Robin, which I have had for three years, has only

three a day, as, if he gets more, he has fits. As I consider the mealworms

heating, I generally give them the first thing in the morning, about nine,

and feed with Gasparin's about ten and again about five.


On their return from Shows, and about once a month, when at home,

I give my birds six to ten drops of extract of Cascara Sagrada in their

drinking-water, as I find they will drink that — and it is so difficult to give

castor oil. As a rule, I keep them separately in box-cages, 20 inches by 12

inches, not being able to have aviaries, except for Wagtails. I find the

Blackcaps and Whinchats are very fond of a little piece of cooked fish.


E. Iv. HOPWOOD.



Gasparin's food I consider to be an excellent preparation, and I am

now giving my foreign soft-bills a mixture of it with Abrahams' Preserved

~B,^^, and soaked ants' eggs, in about equal proportions. This seems to

form a nourishing and wholesome food which they all eat readily, and with

bananas and apples, and biscuit or sponge cake made into a crumbl}' paste

with boiled milk, constitutes their regular diet. I am not at all sure whether

the preserved ^%^ might not with advantage be omitted.


My Ceram Lory lives on biscuit soaked in boiled milk (made rather

sloppy) and stewed apple. The Ivorikeets have their biscuit much more

solid, and usually have bananas and raw apple instead of stewed apple.


Horatio R. Fii,i,mbr.



[We should be glad of many more letters upon this subject, as we

should like to have the benefit of the experience of ever}' member who has

successfully kept soft-bills for years. The treatment adopted by many will

doubtless be much the same as that described in some of the letters we have

already published, but the evidence will not be the less valuable on that

account.]



