On hancl-reariug long-tailed tits.



389



“ Mr. A. Ezra’s experience in keeping humming birds alive in Eng-

" land. You may be interested to bear of the humming bird

“ experiments in the past two summers: our home was closed last

“ year until August the 11th, when my sister returned. She put

“ out and filled the flowerless bottles, but no birds came to drink.

“ All this season I have had two flowerless bottles in position, and

“ have filled them when humming birds are about, but no attention

“ is paid to them. Evidently my drinking birds are dead or have

“ forgotten. The bottles in the artificial flowers have not been set

“out for three summers. I expect to begin with them again next

“ summer, which will be the tenth.”


Yours sincerely, Althea R. SHERMAN.


We most cordially thank Miss Sherman for writing and for

permitting such an interesting record to appear in the “Avicultural

Magazine.”



HAND-REARING LONG-TAILED TITS.


By Hugh Wormald.


During the last week in March I noticed what appeared to be

a completed long-tailed tit’s nest, situated in the usual site, i.e. a tall

hawthorn hedge overgrown with brambles (ninety per cent, of the

long-tailed tits in this neighbourhood build in high hedges overgrown

with brambles). I left it for five weeks, when I thought there should

be fair sized young in it, but on feeling in I found there were still

only eggs ; probably the nest was not so near completion as appeared

to be the case from the outside when I first found it. However, the

next time I examined it, a fortnight later, I found it full of nearly

fledged young, two of which with some difficulty I extracted, as I

was under the impression that they would make nice cage-birds. I

took them home and put them into the drying-off box of an incubator

which I filled with duck’s down, into which they burrowed out of

sight. Eor two days they sulked and refused to open their beaks,

so I had to stuff them. I fed them with mealworms, small green

caterpillars, spiders, etc., but as soon as they opened their beak I

added “ Ceckto.” They could fly well in four days, and directly I

went into the room they would fly out of the top of the incubator



