1 10 Indian Museum Notes. [Vol. IV. 



gives the insects dry, as I did. Wild birds eat them, so the food is 

 a perfectly natural one. The insects could be collected, during their 

 short period of abundance each year, in any quantity with the very 

 smallest amount of labour. A coarse open umbrella suspended 

 under a lamp would catch quantities ; and they will dry readily 

 indoors, if spread thinly and turned over frequently. 



I cannot believe that the " ant's eggs" can be obtained and ren- 

 dered marketable with as little expenditure of labour as this ; and 

 therefore, in spite of the cost of carriage from India to Europe, I 

 have no doubt that the Indian bird-food could be offered at a cheaper 

 rate than the European, to which it is moreover superior in purity, 

 as remarked by Dr. Butler. In fact, if collected as I suggest, 

 there need be no rubbish in it at all. 



Were the utility of this product to be limited to the feeding of 

 cage birds, the sale might be too small to justify any attempt to make 

 it a commercial article, though many who do not keep insectivorous 

 birds would be very glad of insect food for those seed-eaters, which, 

 like many finches, need such nourishment for rearing- their young. 

 It might even, I should think, be used for rearing canaries. 



But it is in the rearing of young game-birds, and very possibly 

 trout also, that the " green bug " would, I believe, be found most 

 valuable. It would be a most excellent and natural food for pheasant 

 chicks, and I see no reason why trout fry should not take it as 

 readily as gold-fish do the dried "ants* eggs". 



Dried locusts have been suggested by Dr. Giinther * as food for 

 cage and game-birds, but these would be far more troublesome to 

 prepare, and I am inclined to think that for small species and young 

 birds, for which artificial food is most difficult to provide, the *' green 

 bugs " would be better. At any rate they are worth a careful trial. 



See Dr. Giinther's very interesting notes in Mr. E. C. Cotes' paper on this subject [The 

 Agricultural Ledger No. 2, 1893 (Entomological Series, No. i) ], from which it appears that 

 there is a large opening for dried insects of some sort as food for birds< 



