Fresh Air for Cage-birds. 277


FRESH AIR FOR CAGE-BIRDS.



About two mouths ago a pair of Yellow-winged Sugar

Birds was sent me from a Loudon dealer, who paid me the

compliment of saying that although they were in very poor

condition, he thought I might bring them round, and I might

pay him in return what I thought fit.


The female was miserable. Her feathers were clogged

together in a sticky mess so that she was hardly able to move,

much less fly : she was thin and, as I found the day after their

arrival, she had a horrid cheese-like growth beneath the root

of the tongue. No bird ever looked more wretched!


To operate upon this growth, which seemed to me to be

the same malady that attacks pigeons, was 110 easy matter. It

meant holding a bird in one's left hand, a bird no larger than

some of the Humming-birds, open a long slender curved bill,

and hold it open, and then with the free hand, brush under the

tiny tongue with a rather stiff small oil-painting brush dipped in

" Lysterine."


The strength of the little bird was extraordinary as

regards her bill, for I had to introduce an ivory paper-knife,

and positively prize the two mandibles apart.


In a week's time I cured her of the growth. She was

gently sponged with warm water, the only way to remove the

stickiness from her feathers, and of course kept in a warm

temperature whilst an invalid. And now, in spite of the

miserable weather of the Spring-time, the cold and the damp,

she is as sprightly and well-feathered as any bird can be.


But this is a prelude. What I want to draw the attention

of members who are interested in the subject to is this : the

Yellow-winged Sugar Birds are, I believe, kept in a glass case

(as if they were stuffed birds!) at the Zoological Gardens of

London, where no really fresh air can possibly reach their lungs.

My Sugar Birds, in spite of their having been in such a bad

condition only a short time ago, have been kept in my bird-room

with the windows (large French windows) open day and night,


and have also been frequently put out on the balcony outside -


when the weather was — well ! everyone knows what the weather



