ty 
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MY FOREIGN DOVES AND PIGEONS. 
BLACK-BEARDED DOVEs. 
not give each seed in separate vessels. There may 
be rather more waste giving it mixed, but I do 
not think a bird is so apt to eat more than it should 
of one kind of seed if it has to be at the trouble 
of picking that’ particular seed out. 
Then, in addition to the seed, I give the birds 
now and then ground biscuit, this being ground 
up in my ‘“‘Enterprise’’ cutter (Spratt’s), and after- 
wards sifted. You will find, though you can 
regulate the size cut by the screw, that it is im- 
possible to cut such a substance as biscuit clean. 
There will always be a certain amount of dust and 
smaller pieces, but none of this need be wasted. 
It can be sifted again in a smaller-holed sifter, 
and again in a smaller still, and this will now give 
you three sizes of biscuit, the largest for the doves, 
the smaller size for your tiny ‘birds, the dust for 
mixing with your soft food, being much more pre- 
ferable for this purpose, in my opinion, than grated 
carrot. 
The biscuit I purchase from Messrs. Lipton, 
getting a case of, say, 3 cwt. at a time. This 
will last you for long, and keep well in the wooden 
box it comes in. The kind I am using now is 
the ‘‘Daisy’”’ biscuit (9/- for a 36 lb. case), before 
I have used the ‘‘President’’ and ‘‘Pan Lunch,”’ 
but these two kinds have gone up in price. The 
doves have always a lump of rock salt in a pot in 
each aviary, and the egg shells are saved in the 
kitchen, well dried by being placed in a tin cul- 
linder on the kitchen range, and then ground up 
in the cutter and given to the birds. 
It is no use trying to grind the shells before they 
are well dry, and it is no trouble to the cook to put 
them in the cullinder, nor for you to cmpty it 
every few days. I Jook on this grit made from 
eggshells as most important to birds, especially 
for the hens about to lay. When you know your 
birds are nesting always remember to scatter plenty 
of this grit on the floor, and the laying of firm- 
shelled eggs should be your reward. 
Another item in my doves’ diet is cut up Monkey 
Nuts, or, as some people call them, pea nuts. I 
found this out by accident. I was shelling some 
nuts as I stood in the aviary, for some of my 
members of the Parrot tribe, and the bits of nut 
were picked up and eaten with evident relish by 
a Violet Dove. But pea nuts are tedious things 
to shell by hand, and when shelled are awkward 
and slippery to cut with a knife. This difficulty, 
however, has been got over. Mr. J. J. Armitage 
(of the firm of Messrs. Armitage, 27, Castf Gate, 
Nottingham, who are large seed merchants) came 
to my rescue. He can shell and cut up the nuts 
for me by machinery, making the pieces any size 
I like, the price of the nuts being 4/- a stone, 
shelled and cut. Mr. Armitage has been a very 
good friend to both my birds and myself, and we 
owe him our very grateful thanks for many kind- 
nesses; he has always been so interested in my 
birds, and in thinking out anything that mav 
conduce to their comfort. I do not know if the 
oil that is in the nut might affect a bird’s plumage 
and give it a glossy look, but my birds certainly 
look: very ‘‘tight’’ in feather, and it is very seldom 
that they ail anything. 
I am sure doves need other food besides dry 
seeds. Bleeding Hearts are fond of mealworms, 
and J have found them also delight in ‘‘soft’’ food. 
This I get from Mr. Armitage at 8d. Ib., and very 
excellent it is. J mix it with the ground biscuit, 
about half of each. In No. > aviary, which is at 
present rather mixed as to its inhabitants, a pot of 
this soft food was put daily for a Blue-cheeked 
Barbet that I had for some years. I soon found 
other birds besides the Barbet helped themselves 
to it and flourished. One was my cock Barra- 
band parrakeet, and others were the Bleeding 
Hearts. It certainly seemed to suit them, and I 
have no doubt that others of my doves who also 
get it are improved by it too, for in so many notes 
on the wild life of doves we read of their subsist- 
ing on berries, so that more than a dry seed diet 
seems needed, and the soft food apparently is an 
excellent substitute. 
1 have spoken in the notes following on the 
Bronze-wings of their fondness for Wineberries, 
Dwarr Terre anp Brusit BRONZE-WING. 
