250 Correspondence.


CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, ETC.



A NEW INSECTIVOROUS BIRD FOOD.


Messrs. Trower & Co., of 442, Caledonian Road, London, N., have

sent us a sample of a new food for insectivorous birds, made, we under-

stand, from the recipe of Mr. Allen Silver, a well-known authority on

insectivorous cage-birds. The ingredients, the chief of which consist of

ants' cocoons, dried flies, and preserved yolk of egg, appear to be of very

fine quality indeed. The price of the food is very moderate, only one

shilling per pound, at which it could not be produced were it not for the

fact that the ingredients are procured in very large quantities.


It appears to us to be an excellent food which we can recommend

our members to try. It keeps indefinitely, only requiring to be moistened

with water for use, or it can be mixed with grated carrot or mashed potato.



TINAMOUS.


Sir, — I have just got a pair of Tinamous (said to be Rhyncohris per-

dicarius). They are small birds about the size of a Partridge. As I know

nothing about this class of bird I should be glad of some hints as to

management.


At present I have them in a small grass run with wooden shelter

facing south, and I am feeding them on wheat and millet with a few meal-

worms. I have put down several heaps of fir branches in the run for the

birds to live in, as they are at present very shy.


I shall be glad to know as soon as convenient if the feeding is correct,

also if the birds will be hardy in winter and if they are easy to breed.


May I venture to suggest that an article in the Avicultural Magazine

on the various sorts of Tinamous and their management would be much

appreciated by members. C. Barnby Smith.


The following reply was sent to Mr. Barnby Smith:


I have kept one species of Tinamou only, — Crypturus tataupa, an

account of which, with a coloured plate, appeared in Vol. II. of the New

Series, pages 2S5-292 and 362-363. I am unacquainted with Nothoprocta

perdicaria, but so far as I am aware the habits of most of the Tinamous

are practically alike. The male is smaller than the female and performs

the entire duty of incubation and the rearing of the young, and moreover

these birds are polyandrous, the female laying successive clutches of eggs

to two or more males. Thus in captivity, when the hen has laid a clutch

which the male has commenced to incubate, she should be allowed to run

in another enclosure with a second male to whom she will lay a second

clutch.



