MANAGEMENT OP SQUEAKERS. 43 



there is very little need of loss under any circumstances, if only 

 a little attention can be given regularly morning and evening. 

 A great deal of pleasure is to be found in all this, and in watch- 

 ing the produce of each pair grow up to maturity. No such 

 care at all will be needed with hardy birds, except in case of 

 some accident or previous neglect. All tliey need is to have 

 their hopper properly supplied, and they will bring up their own 

 young ones without troubling anybody. 



Some young ones are slow to learn to peck for themselves, 

 though this is seldom the case. The difficulty is more often 

 found with birds fed by hand, which sometimes seem to have 

 little idea of even attempting to feed themselves, long after 

 others of the same age are doing so. Much help in inducing 

 birds to peck may be got from mixtures of smaller grain, such 

 as canary-seed, dari, rape, and hempseed. A handful or two 

 of such mixtures, thrown down twice a day, will often induce 

 the young ones to peck, whilst it also helps old birds which 

 are nursing to give a good evening meal to their young ones. 

 When this is not sufficient, a little starvation should be tried : 

 taking care, however, that the young bird is not kept more 

 than twenty-four hours without food. 



While the young squeakers remain in the nest-pan the 

 sawdust should be renewed from time to time, taking care to 

 perform this, like all operations, so as not to startle the old 

 birds. With this attention, and an examination every night 

 after the first day or two to see if they want any artificial 

 cramming, they should get on. Especially look after the 

 smaller bird of the two, since if one gets much behind the other 

 it is apt to be more and more elbowed aside, " the survival of 

 the fittest" being a rigorous law in the pigeon world. By 

 judiciously cramming the smaller bird omly of a pair, in addition 

 to what it gets from the parents, it may often be brought up to 

 the originally finer one, and both thus saved. Under no cir- 

 cumstances, however, must hard grain be given tiU the young 



