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present bird ; but feed it upon Abrahams' food, 5^olk of egg, ants' cocoons (/?)

and mealworms; I give the food all mixed together (but not damped), and I

sometimes sprinkle in a little Zeke, the new "dried flies" now being

imported ; these are greedily eaten by all insectivorous birds.


A. G. Buti,e;r.


Sir, — I am sorr}' that I cannot comply with Mr. Phillipps's request

that I should give my personal experiences of the food of the wild

Nightingale, for the simple but sufficient reason that I have, so far as I am

aware, never even seen a wild Nightingale. I confess with much sorrow,

though without shame, that almost the whole of my sixty-two 3'ears have

b)een passed amongst bricks and mortar : even when in America I was

nearly always in New York or Montreal (though I should not, under any

circumstances, have been able to add to my knowledge of the Nightingale

on that side of the " herring-pond ! ").


As to captive Nightingales, my experience is that they w/// eat fruit.

When I lived at Birmingham in the seventies I had several Nightingales,

most of which w^ould eat a little fruit occasionally, but never freel}- or as if

they cared for it. I fed them on a mixture of ants' eggs, hard-boiled eo-o-,

and a little powdered biscuit, and I now believe that if I had omitted the

"biscuit and giveii the j'olk of egg without the white mj- success would have

been greater. The Nightingale which I now have has, up to the present,

refused to eat fruit. I feed him on soaked ants' eggs, with a little of

Abrahams' egg now and then, and at least seven or eight mealworms a day (i).


Septimus Perkins.



BRITISH BIRD NOTEvS.


Sir, — I have been staying this spring in a rural part of Kent, about

ten miles from Canterbury ; perhaps a few notes on the birds I have seen

ma}' be of interest to some of the members.


The nesting season was generallj' rather late, owing to the cold winds

and frequent rain. I heard the Nightingale for the first time on the 4tli

April, and the Cuckoo on the 9th. Nightingales have been numerous. I

found one nest containing five eggs on the i4tli Ma}'. This was on the

ground, in a bunch of nettles, at the back of a stack of wood. The eo-o-s

all hatched, and the young ones had flown by the 2nd June. When I

cautiously looked at the nestlings, the birds made a good deal of noise, and

came close to me with their tails up, in a very excited and angrv manner.

Linnets built both in the hedges by the roadside, and in short bushes on the

slopes of the Downs. I had seven nests under view, one with four eoo-s

that were almost white, without any spots. Of these seven nests, four had

the eggs taken, I think by other birds, probably Jays, as there were two

pairs near by. The eggs were broken in the nest, and the contents eaten.

One nest of young Linnets was dragged out by some boys, from whom I

captured it. As it was useless to attempt to replace it, I took the little

things home, placed nest and young in a basket, and hand-fed the birds


(/;) The ants' cocoons are the last things eaten, but all the egg- disappears.— A. G. B.


(i) Thank j'ou ; books are responsible for many avicultural errors'. But I must

not crow too loudU', for on June 9th m,v English Nightingale deliberately went ud to

and gave eight decided pecks at, the half-rotten remains of a partialh- devoured cherry

(put down for but little regarded by the Golden Orioles— books again), ignoring many

sound good ones scattered around. — R. P.



