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I am sorry to find, from the paper enclosed in the Avicultural M&gazine

for this month, that our Society is to be associated with a Cage-Bird Shbw.


-- M. D. Sharp.


breeding kestrels.


Sir,— It seems hard to account for what, I believe, is a fad, that the

diurnal branch of the Raptores, or Birds of Prey, while not nnfrequently

making nests, and even laying eggs in our aviaries, seem to be somehow

affected by confinement to such an extent that they ver}' rarely hatch their

young. Amongst the owls, I believe, besides the noble Eagle Owl, so long-*,

lived in captivity, and a free breeder, and the beautiful Snowy Owl, which,

though requiring much more care, has hatched young in at least three

collections in this country to my knowledge, the Barn, Tawny, Scops,

Little Owl, and perhaps others have been successfully bred. But of the

diurnal Raptores which have hatched young, I cannot myself recall an

instance of any other species than the subject of this letter, and the Great

S. American Condor, of which there is an unfledged nestling labelled;

“Hatched in the Zoological Gardens,” amongst the stuffed birds at the

Natural History Museum in the Cromwell Road.


A female Kestrel, which shared an aviary of mine with a pair of Red

Kites, on the eggs of the latter being taken away after having as usual

proved unfertile, took possession of the vacant nest; and, on my return

home after a short absence, I found her sitting on a clutch of her own eggs

in a neat little cup which she had excavated amongst the wool and hair of

the great untidy' structure. Before the next spring I had provided her with

a mate in the adult plumage, and, both that season and the next, they

reared several young ones. When the young were clamouring for food, it was

very pretty to see even the male, who w r as at other times rather shy, snatch

meat from the hand and hurry with it up to the nest, which was on a

shelf in the covered part of the aviary. As I did not require the young,

they were by degrees allowed their freedom, and though they hung about

for some considerable time, they gradually disappeared.


- W. H. S'i'. Ouintin.


FOOD FOR INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS.


Sir, —The subject of food for insectivorous birds has always been one of

particular interest for me, and the wording of many of the advertisements

has been a source of much amusement, because an universal food for

insectivorous birds is necessarily an anomaly. There are, if I may use

the term, many “grades” of insectivorous birds; and food on which a

Thrush or Blackbird would thrive would go a very little way towards

keeping a Blackcap, a Nightingale, or a Wren alive even, leaving condition

out of the question. Manufacturers of bird-foods seem to be content with

placing a food on the market that will keep life in our birds without

bringing the feathers off them : that is “ bird keeping,” but it is not

“ aviculture.” The food has yet to be invented that will maintain the

delicate velvety suppleness of feather that one finds on fresh-caught

specimens. To more fully explain what I mean, I recommend any

aviculturist to handle a fresh-cauglit bird and note the quality of the

feathers and the elasticity of the quills; then, a month or six weeks later,

go through the process again and it will be found that -the quills have

lost, in some degree, their elasticity and the web will be more brittle, while

the body feathers generally will not have the bloom on them they

previously had.



