113


and ants'-eggs, with a little potato, giving also a few mealworms

■and cockroaches daily. On this food my Sham a has thriven for

nearly three years ; and his recent escapade, as just related,

proves that he is by no means in feeble health ; often, for weeks

at a time, he entirely refuses mealworms (his customary

allowance is six or seven a day), and cockroaches are then his

only insect-food. He has never had meat in any form, as it seems

to me most inappropriate food for an insecflivorous bird.



CORRESPONDENCE.



FOOD FOR SOFT-BIIvIvFD BIRDS.


Sir, — In reply to Mr. vSeptimus Perkins, I fail to see that because

" the abilit}^ to digest farinaceous food depends upon the power to convert

starch into dextrine " the most delicate insectivorous birds, such as the

English Warblers, are therefore necessarily iinable to digest bread. If any

-of these birds did, as he suggests, live entirely upon inserts in a wild state,

there would be something in his argument, but they do ttot.


Probably the most delicate of all the English Warblers is the Gold-

crest, which, in addition to insect food, swallows both seeds and berries;

nor do I know of one Warbler (the natural food of which is known) which

does not eat the smaller berries, such as elderberries.


Mr. Perkins' mention of the Nightingale is unfortunate for his argu-

ment, because this bird is the one species upon which the discussion arose,

and of which Mr. FuUjames said that it could not digest biscuit or bread

• crumbs. Now Mr. Perkins not only thinks that the Nightingale, being

accustomed to swallow a certain amount of cellulose, may be expected to

■convert a certain amount of starch into dextrine ; but he further admits

that biscuit, being already partiallj' converted, is almost (if not altogether)

a suitable food for the more delicate insectivorous birds. («)


After all, the best argument that can be used for or against any food

is experience. Mr. Fulljames found that Nightingales fed partly on bread

died before the end of the first year of captivity ; and he fairl}' calls my

attention to the fact that my birds did not live more than eighteen months ;

still eighteen months represent a good period in which a bird is discovering

that it "will not eat and cannot digest" that which it has eaten and

digested for a year and a half.


As to the suggestion that my Nightingales died of fits : all I can say is

that those fits curiously resembled heat apoplexy, and did not in the least

look like fits resulting from indigestion.


A. G. BuTivER.



Sir, — Dr. Butler asks " What is orthodox avicultural teaching ? " I

;am not enamoured of that phrase, which I adopted on the spur of the


(a) This letter by Dr. Butler is written in answer to Mr. Perkins' letter in the

Magazine for March. Dr. Butler's reply to Mr. Perkins' letter published this month

will be found on page 114. — :Ed.



