98


In the December number of our Magazine, Mr. Button questions

wlietlier in confinement the natural food is best, on the strength of the fact

that honey has been found injurious to birds which eat it in a wild state ;

but ma}' not this be explained b}- the fact that honey or nectar, as extracted

from flowers, is a different substance from honey as stored by the bees ? My

bee book, speaking of the working bee, says "It has a honey-sack in which

the nectar from the flowers is collected, and transformed by a chemical

action into honej-."


Green Bulbuls I have found do well on my mixture, bread and milk,

and soft fruit.


I have not found it necessary to feed my birds at night in the winter,

as recommended by Mr. Bonhote. My idea is that while birds are asleep

there is no waste of tissue, and therefore no demand for food. I doubt if

Miss Hopwood's plan, of making her birds eat green food, is a good one.

I find that insectivorous birds do not, as a rule, care for green food. If it is

good for them, I don't think they ought to require forcing to take it.


C. Harrison.



Sir, — It seems more convenient to discuss Dr. Butler's letter on

" Bread for Soft-billed Birds " iinder this heading, as it deals with a branch

of the same subject.


Aviculture is not an exact science, and aviculturists always have

differed, and probably always will differ, in opinion as to the best foods for

various kinds of birds ; still, there is such a thing as what may be called

the traditional or orthodox doctrine on the subject, and I think everyone

will agree that the feeding of British Warblers on food containing bread-

crumbs is not in accordance with orthodox avicultural teaching, (a) It seems

to me, therefore, that Dr.Butler can scarce!}' complain of Mr. FuUjames'state-

nient to the effect that the more delicate insectivorous birds cannot digest

bread, as that statement is in no way original, and is but an echo of what

we have always been taught by those who have hitherto been supposed to

know most about the subject. The statement itself may be true or may be

false, but it is so well siipported by authority that no one need be astonished

at its being made, and the onus of proof is on those who controvert it.


There appears to me to be an inherent difficulty in believing that

bread is good for insectivoroi:s birds. The ability to digest farinaceous food

depends upon the power to convert starch into dextrine; and we are told

that young infants, whose natural food is milk, do not possess this power.

The natural food of insectivorous birds is insects, and as the power to

convert starch into dextrine would be useless to them in a state of nature it

seems scarcely likely that they possess it. The advantage of biscuit over

bread is that in biscuit a larger proportion of the starch has been already

converted into dextrine in the process of baking.


The fact that insectivorous birds will devour considerable quantities

of bread without injury to themselves proves little or nothing. Our grand-

fathers and grandmothers were largely fed, in infancy, on pap, and were


(a) What is orthodox avicultural teaching ? Orthodoxy teaches that some fruit-

eaters shall be fed on raw meat. To each man orthodoxy is his own doxy.— A. G. B.



