The Virginian Nightingale. 125 



tie house, to keep it in a cage with a canvas top until it 

 has become tame, and accustomed to its new surroundings, 

 which a judiciously administered course of mealworms will 

 effect in a week or two. 



If the diet is not sufficiently liberal the Cardinal Grosbeak 

 will moult with difficulty, fail to reproduce his feathers, and, 

 perhaps, fall into a decline; otherwise I am not aware of his 

 suffering from any disease, but have found him quite strong 

 and hardy. 



I append copies of two letters which I received from a 

 correspondent relative to one of these birds, as I consider them 

 instructive, illustrating as they do the beneficial effects of the 

 mode of treatment I have just recommended. — 



"July 13th., 1881. 



Will you kindly give me some advice 

 respecting Virginian Nightingales? A friend of mine bought 

 one about six months ago, and paid sixteen shillings and sixpence 

 for it, and the bird was in splendid plumage when he received 

 it, and he had nothing to keep it in but a cage about two feet 

 six inches long. After being in the cage about two months, 

 the bird began to lose his feathers, beginning round his eyes, 

 and so continued until he has lost them all except the flight 

 feathers of the wings, and his tail, and there is no sign of any 

 more coming in their place. He has been fed on canary and 

 hemp seed mixed, nothing else, as my friend did not know what 

 else to give him. The bird is now in my care. I am giving 

 him canary seed, boiled egg, and blackbeetles, about two or three 

 a day. Kindly advise me how to treat him, and oblige yours 

 laithfully. 



The above graphic confession of ignorance would represent 

 the amount of knowledge possessed by a very large number 

 of persons who will keep birds, too often with even more 

 disastrous results than those mentioned above. After some 



