Ii6


Sir, — Your inviting correspondence on this interesting subject, some

time ago, emboldens me to write and give my experience. My soft-billed

birds now consist of four cock Song Thrushes, a Blackbird, a Sk3dark,

an American Mocking Bird, and a Nightingale ; and my staple food for them

is hard-boiled egg and breadcrumbs, stirred together with a three tined

fork, to which I add ants'-eggs and slightly crushed hemp, and mix lightly

together so that the birds can pick out, without difficulty, what they like best.

The Nightingale and Mocking Bird get a dozen or more mealworms each

everj' da}^ and the Lark coarse oatmeal and canary seed. The Thrushes are

very fond of Spratt's dog biscuit soaked in grav)^ from a bullock's head,

which I boil for my dogs. When the weather is warm, I give them all

gentles ; and the way I produce them is this : I buy about a pound of cheap

foreign beef for 3d., put it in the sun for about two daj^s, then put it in a

large flower pot and fill the pot up with garden mould — after ten days I find

nothing but fine gentles and mould. I have them sifted through a cinder

sieve into a Nestle's tinned milk box, and throw a trowelful into the

aviaries every day.


As bread is rather relaxing for birds, I substitute, occasionally, barley-

meal made crumbly with milk, and scraps of sponge cake, which can be

bought cheap.


A. Jones.



BREEDING INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS.


Sir, — As the Spring advances, some of us, mindful of failures in the

past, are anxiouslj- considering how we ma}' command greater success in

the approaching breeding season. In this connection, it would probably

be of great advantage if those aviculturisLs who have succeeded in rearing

some of the more difficult subjects would explain their methods. I for one

should be very greatly obliged for any practical hints of a system of

management which has proved successful in rearing an}' of the foreign

insectivorous birds.


I have a beautiful pair of Rock-thrushes just passing their second

Winter in an open aviary. They are in the highest condition, and the male

is fast acquiring his handsome breeding-dress of cobalt blue and bright

chestnut. Last Summer young were twice hatched ; and, if my mealworms

had held out, I have no doubt the young would have safely left the nest.

But the parents would take nothing but certain insects to the young, and

not even flies or small earthworms ; and as, while inse(5ls were being given,

they themselves would not look at their usual mixture of artificial food, the

drain upon my store of mealworms was considerable ; and at the time (May

and June) they were hardly to be obtained, and not at all at short notice.

In the end the mealworms, and such wire worms, centipedes and woodlice as

I could collect, gave out, and the young died. The birds went to nest again

at once, and I accumulated a small supply of mealworms in readiness ; but

they were soon exhausted, and all the young died, except one which I took

at nine days old and endeavoured to rear by hand.


However, I suppose the youngster had been left too long in the nest,

for it was curiously wild and stubborn, though two young Song-thrushes of

the same age, placed with it as companions, were easily reared ; for the

whole of the succeeding week the Rock-thrush obstinately refused to open



