on Hancl-Bearing British Birds.



107



food which I forwarded with it) and consequently had one fit after

another, dying about an hour after I got it home again/"


As evidence of the evil effects of raw beef upon the Tnrdidce

when given regularly I may note that about the year 1886 a lad

brought me a nest of young Robins (supposing them to be

Nightingales) and, in my ignorance, I tried to rear them upon

shredded raw beef and sopped bread mixed up together, which

speedily killed them all. Then again in June 1887, I got a

genuine nest of Nightingales and, in addition to more suitable food,

gave a little chopped meat : they all got violent diarrhoea and two of

them died ; I then discontinued the meat, feeding the remaining

three upon powdered dog-biscuit, oat-flower, pea-meal, yolk of egg

and ants’ cocoons, and reared them without difficulty.


The same year I attempted to rear a nest of Lesser White-

throats upon moistened Abrahams’ food (a sort of German paste mixed

with yolk of egg and ants’ cocoons) but the tiny things got dirty with

the messy food, which contained a quantity of golden syrup, so that

I lost two of the four and the other two (like many hand-reared

birds when kept in a cage) ate more than was good for them and

died from apoplexy when about a month old.


Later in the same year I successfully reared one of two

Sedge-Warblers, feeding at first upon hard-boiled egg and bread¬

crumbs, but later upon the same food as'that upon which I had reared

my Nightingales. I kept the young bird in a flight-cage and he was

most fascinatingly tame : but overeating caused his death in

September, after the completion of his moult: I still possess his skin

which was pronounced by the late Dr. Sharpe to be one of the most

brightly-coloured examples he had seen.


I only once attempted to bring up a nest of Hedge-Accentors,

but failed owing to the fact that I gave a mixture of egg and sweet

biscuit—excellent for domesticated Canaries, but quite insufficient for

insectivorous birds.


* This and many similar experiences of carelessness on the part of show

attendants, and not infrequently ignorance on the part of judges who preferred

two cock birds exhibited as a pair to genuine sexes (on the plea that the former

were “ bigger birds”—two cocks would seem bigger than a pair) I gave up

showing years ago.



