on the Transpoi't or Birds.



339



administered, and were, before our modern conveniences of

feeding were introduced. Such crude articles of human diet

may not suit some delicate species indefinitely, but one has, with

care and luck in weather, a chance to pull any bird through a

few weeks’ voyage till the better supplies are secured ; and many

species take quite well to the articles named. Bread of course

should be stale, well crumbled and intimately mixed with the

egg, which should be very hard-boiled, or the meat, which should

be finely minced, or scraped for very tiny birds. Biscuit can, of

course, always be substituted, and may be easier to get. Rice

should be dry-boiled and grainy, as one gets it in the East, and

milk-sop should not be sloppy, except for birds which suck up

their food. Condensed milk alone is well taken by honey-sucking

birds such as lories, sunbirds, and I believe humming-birds, and

is easy to get ; in fact, it is in most cases the only milk one will

get at sea, as cows and goats are seldom carried.


Meat cut up into bits is taken by large insect-eaters, and

will keep the purely insectivorous kinds, such as land-kingfishers

and rollers, by itself. Fish-eaters will also live on meat, though

it is not good as a permanent diet.


Fruit-eating birds can be got to take dry-boiled rice and

boiled potatoes cut up ; they can also have soaked bread and

biscuit and soaked dried fruit.


Grain-eaters should be got on to crushed biscuit or stale

bread in case grain or seed of the proper sort is wanting. A bird

may eat some kinds of seed and starve on it; I have been told

this is the case with common pigeons when fed on paddy-rice.

Green food can be supplied by chopped raw roots or apple, or

sprouted seeds.


With regard to live food ; some kinds of tropical fish, such

as the Koee ( A?iabas scandens ) and Sin gee ( Saccobranchus fossilis)

of India, will travel well in but little water, and would come in

well for feeding carnivorous or fish-eating birds; cut up, they

would be better for insect-eaters than flesh meat, being less

heavy.


Earthworms will travel well in damp soil in well-cleaned

kerosene tins ; frogs can also be transported in such tins with

turf and fresh water. Water-snails should prove equally easy of



