149 



may, and make a feeder of it ; do not hazard the rearing of a valuable bird through it. 

 The more you kill, comparatively speaking, however strange it may appear, my expe- 

 rience teaches the greater will be your gain ; otherwise, you will raise the rough long- 

 faced, and lose the valuable short faced birds. I advise ycni to have plenty of feeders. 



OF SHIFTING. 



443. Hatching a little wonder is one thing, to raise it another. In a former part of 

 this work I laid great stress on shifting, when you consider how early the old birds 

 begin to decline sitting on their young ; this is more particularly the case with the Al- 

 mond Tumblers, who will rarely bring up their own young, except in the height of 

 summer, by reason of their quitting them sooner to go to nest again. They begin to 

 get restless as early as the sixth day ; the ninth or tenth they will be off the nest for 

 an hour or more at a time ; get calling to nest again ; the young ones left exposed to 

 the air before they have a feather upon them, die of cold with their crops full. To ob- 

 viate this, he should shift them under another pair that have not hatched so long ; kill 

 the young ones he takes away from such other pair, if he has not a shift for them ; in 

 doing which he get these shifted young ones an additional supply of warmth, from 

 being sat on, and of soft meat, from the fresh pair not having hatched or fed so long, 

 consequently their soft meat not being exhausted. Some Fanciers are very unwilling 

 to kill a bird, by which means they frequently lose two ; surely, it is better to kill one 

 to save the other, than not to kill it, and so lose both. 



444. If he has not Almonds enough, it is better to get some common Tumblers for 

 feeders or nurses, such as Baldheads or Beards, by killing their young, which he will 

 do without reluctance ; he may be certain of bringing up his young Almonds ', if he is 

 judicious, he will generally have a succession of feeders, by taking away the hens of 

 his feeders, and confining them awhile. When any of his best Almonds are within a 

 day or two of laying, turn the feeder hen to her mate ; they will go to nest immediately, 

 and lay in a week or less after the others, by which means he will get a certain shift 

 for his young Almonds at the distance of six, seven, or eight days, just the time the 

 old ones begin to desert them, and thus bring up a pair of good birds, without such 

 feeders he probably would have lost. He should let the common birds feed their own 

 young a day or two after hatching to bring on their soft meat. 



445. There are Fanciers who by no means approve of shifting more than once, if it 

 can be avoided. Sometimes the course of shifting throughout the whole will necessarily 

 be such it cannot be prevented. Too great a supply of soft meat is very detrimental — 

 frequently fatal, causing the canker or putresence in the throac of the young bird. It 

 is necessary to give the young ones fresh nests when you shift them. I will throw out 

 a hint — I hope you have no insects ; if you scrape your aviary, loft, or breeding 

 places daily, by attention to these rules you will not be troubled with insects in any 

 material degree. The best way is to burn the old nest ; a few hot cinders dropped into 

 the nest pan and shaken round will kill all that remain in the porous parts of the pan. 

 Some Fanciers assert, shifting the nests of the young birds is apt to give them the 

 scowers ; I cannot say I ever experienced that to be the case ; on the contrary, they 

 have always thriven greatly. At the same time it would be wise to put the shifted birds 

 into the feeders' pans for a day or two, for fear the old birds should smell the powder. 

 Wha ooch ! to you if they do. 



OF MOULTING. 



446. This, though nota disease, but natural to all the feathered kind, is more fataUo the 

 Almond Tumbler than any disease that afflicts them ; they moult, or, in other words, 

 cast their old feathers and acquire a new set every year. Numbers of them die under 

 this painful operation of nature, before they can accomplish the change ; most of them 

 are rendered more or less unwell, particularly the hens, which are generally more deli- 

 cate and less capable of bearing such a change ; if they are old it is mostly fatal to 

 them. They begin to moult about May or June, by casting the flight feathers, and 

 no further moult is perceptible till the middle of July or so, when the body feathers 

 begin to appear pretty thick about the aviary or loft ; in August they get considerably 

 into moult ; in the month of September they are deep in moult, many of them being 

 very ragged about the breast and hackle ; some of their necks are featherless, full of 



