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Mr. Perkins will find, if lie looks through the letters on soft food

which have been piiblished in the Magazine, that I do not stand alone in

my advocac}- of bread as an article of diet in soft food mixtures : moreover,,

if he will get a tin of Abrahams' food for soft-billed birds, he will find that

this gentleman (than whom no living authority has had more experience)

recommends that his food be mixed with double its bulk of stale bread-

crumbs.


I think it possible that the more delicate Warblers would do better

with less bread than I have generally given them ; for when I reared the

Sedge- Warbler and Lesser Whitethroat they died from apoplexy ; being

found (when skinned) to be abnormally fat : they therefore not only digested

bread, but it proved too nourishing for them.


A. G. BuiXER.



Sir,— The Nightingale, Blackcap Warbler, Larger and Lesser White-

throat, Redstart, Wheatear, Wagtails, Tits, Flycatchers, Larks, etc., can be

kept in the best of health on ants'-eggs (or more correctly, cocoons), meal-

worms, blackbeetles, crickets, flies, spiders, butterflies, moths, mothworms,

caterpillars, gentles, flesh maggots, woodlice, wasp grubs, etc.


Mealworms I always render helpless by incising them behind the

head with a sharp knife before putting in the cage. Beetles, crickets and

woodlice I usually kill by scalding with boiling water before giving to the

birds.


Wasp-nests may be procured in the summer from artizans in the

country districts, who take a delight in hunting for them, and seem well

satisfied with sixpence to one shilling per nest, according to the size.

I make it known to the country workmen that I am open to buy a few

nests of wasps at prices named above, and soon the men come in with their

pocket-handkerchiefs full of them. They are just taken and all alive, but

the winged wasps are stunned and so made helpless by the " fuse " which is

used to keep them off whilst the nest is being taken. I at once put the

nests into a hot oven and bake them until they are nearly brown, and

then remove them from the oven, put them on an old tray on the top of

the oven or cooking stove, drying them until all moisture has disappeared.

If the grubs will rattle when a cake is shaken about, they can then be stored

away in baskets or boxes in a dry place. Be sure the}^ are thoroughly dried

before they are stored away, or they will become mouldy and spoil. They

can be used dry, powdered, or after being steeped in boiling water.


Other insects can be given when they are plentiful. No one need

despair of keeping soft-billed British birds in good health and condition, in

a favourable temperature, with such a bill of fare to select from. Ripe fruit

and dried fruit may be offered occasionally as a luxury.


I have kept several Nightingales and other soft-billed British birds in

the best of health and condition, and won with them at most leading shows

in Great Britain, and have fed them on one or more of the items specified.

My Nightingales would sing almost as soon as unpacked in a show-room.

The Secretary from Carlisle Shov/, on one occasion, sent me a post card

saying that his Committee sat listening to my " Gale " until the early hours

of the morning after they had unpacked him at about 10.30 the night

previous. Chas. Houi,ton.



