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Practical Bird-Keeping.



true Passerines, we need not despair of seeing Humming-birds also

more commonly and successfully kept sooner or later. It is true

that Sunbirds bop about in the normal way, and are not quite so

sensitive to cold, apparently, but that they were not easy to begin

with the following experiences of mine may show.


In 1897, I started from Calcutta with twelve Amethyst-

rumped Sunbirds (Arachnechthra zeylonica), a selected lot — for to

avoid useless waste of life I had liberated at least as many, which did

not look like doing well—and one Purple (A. asiatica), the only one

I -could get, and in moult at that. Although I arrived home about

midsummer, all the Amethysts died cn route —the last in the train

going up to London—evidently from cold ; the one Purple reached

the Zoo, and lived there about a fortnight only, though treated with

every care by that excellent former keeper of the Insect-House,

Quan trill.


So far as I know, these were the first Sunbirds to reach Eng¬

land, or Europe for that matter; and had I argued as some people

do about Humming-birds, I should have said that Sunbirds were not

worth trying with again.


The subsequent experiences of others, especially of Mr. A.

Ezra, have shown, however, that even the delicate Amethyst can be

shown and moulted successfully; while the Purple, which has

confirmed my scanty experience by proving much the hardier, can

not only be so treated, but has been kept by a dealer (Mr. J. D.

Plamlyn) in numbers in a store-cage in a sitting-room for nearly a

year—a good record for a soft-bill of any sort.


So that, as on the evidence Prevost’s Hummer should be even

hardier than the Purple Sunbird, to say nothing of the other, there

is nothing to despair about, and when this species is fully understood

we can proceed to others with more confidence.


I fed my Sunbirds on diluted condensed milk mixed with

crushed biscuit and powdered hard-boiled egg-yolk, but in the light

of the subsequent experience of others, I should recommend a

mixture of honey, condensed milk, and Mellin’s food, to be given in

a shallow covered vessel with holes in the cover ; and this ought to

serve for Humming-birds also. Aphides and spiders should of course

be provided wherever possible, though I cannot say that the Zoo



