15 



bole in any other part of the shell than ahove mentioned or make it bleed, although 

 I have heard some Fanciers say they have taken them out of the she.ll an^ they 

 have bled like pigs, but it is extremely dangerous. If it has been moving about 

 in the shell so long as to have absorbed all the moisture or blood, and has by its 

 circuitous motion rolled up the little caul or membrane in which it is enveloped 

 vfhilst in the egg, it may safely be set at liberty, taking care to expose it to the air 

 as short a time as possible. When it is disengaged from the shell, a portion 

 of the yolk will be seen attached to its navel, which will nourish it for a day or 

 two, if the old ones should not happen to feed it immediately. It happens from 

 some cause or other, that the young ones do not get fed, in these cases if the 

 Fancier is anxious to save the produce of the pair, and has no means of shifting 

 them under another pair, he must take some crumb of bread, and some yolk of an 

 egg boiled hard, and masticate them in his mouth till they become of the proper 

 consistence to pass into the crop of the young bird, and by applying its beak to 

 his mouth it will in general suck its crop full very readily, and by the time he has 

 repeated this a day or so, the chances are greatly in favor of the old ones feeding 

 it, either from a more abundant supply of soft meat, or from some other cause ; 

 but if the Fancier neglects this too long, the young bird will become weak and 

 will not thrive upon his experiment, even though it should have taken some of this 

 artificial food into its crop in the way before mentioned ; but when once the old 

 ones have fed it after him, it is astonishing to see the alteration that takes place in 

 the young bird for the better, in a few hours. 



If one should hatch considerably before the other, which it will do if the old 

 ones have rather sat upon, than merely stood over the first egg, and it should happen 

 to be a bad head and beak bird, which is not very promising, kill it, although an 

 Almond, and rather take the chance of what the other egg will produce; it being 

 in his favor that the produce will be a short-faced good head and beak bird : the 

 reason I recommend this is, because the rough and strong bird being first hatched, 

 will acquire too much strength, get all the food and starve the one most wished to 

 be raised. For you do not stand in need of rough Almonds, any more than 

 queer Kites ; should you have plenty of feeders that can bring it up you may do 

 so, and make a feeder of it, but do not hazard the rearing of a valuable bird 

 through it. The more you kill, comparatively speaking, however strange it may 

 appear to you, my experience teaches the greater will be your gain ; otherwise, as I 

 stated before, you will raise the rough long-faced, and lose the valuable short-faced 

 birds, but I advise you to have plenty of feeders. 



OF SHIFTING. 



Hatching a little wonder is one thing, to raise it another; and in a former part 

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

 old birds begin to decline sitting on their young ; this is more particularly the case 

 with the Almond 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, and the ninth or tenth they 

 will be off the nest for an hour or more at a time, and get calling to nest again 

 by which the young ones are left exposed to the air before they have a featlier 

 upon them, and die of cold with their crops full ; to obviate this he should shift 

 them under another pair that have not hatched so long, and kill the young ones 

 he takes away from such other pair, if he has not a shift for them also ; in doing 

 which he gets 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, and 

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

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

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



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

 feeders or nurses, such as bald-heads or beards, and by killing their young, which 



