THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 103 



history. Both are equally pleasant and necessary 

 to be acquainted with, and the latter has now been 

 executed in as complete a style as the former. This 

 has long been felt as a desideratum by the Ornitho- 

 logical amateur, for the only work on the subject in 

 Britain was that of Syme, which did not treat the 

 subject so fully as might have been wished. Dr. 

 Bechstein has given a full account of the diseases, 

 food, &c, of the birds treated of, and he seems to 

 have been altogether very successful with his favorite 

 little songsters. He has enthusiasm on the subject, 

 and this is necessary for the perfect, and satisfactory 

 treatment of any subject. The Cage Birds contains 

 a full and interesting account of about two hundred 

 birds, all of which the worthy Doctor had kept in 

 confinement. He seems to have been less success- 

 ful with the Nightingale than any other bird, but 

 that that songster will thrive in confinement, as well 

 as any other bird, appears from the following 

 account of another German Ornithologist, Wich- 

 terich ; who says : — " I have been informed that 

 in England the greater number of the Nightingales 

 confined in cages die within a short time after they 

 are caught ; and rarely outlive the succeeding winter. 

 This is so far from being the case with me, that I 

 should be ashamed to say I had ever lost more 

 Philomels than of any of the other birds usually 

 kept in cages ; though Bechstein has also said in 

 his Natural History of Cage Birds, that all his 

 Nightingales died within no very long time." 



