24 ORNAMENTAL WATERFOWL. 
every species may be successfully reared in the manner 
familiar to farmers’ wives, with hard-boiled eggs, bread crumbs, 
oatmeal, Spratt’s food mixed with young green onions, dandelion 
leaves, and the weed called clivers, to which goslings are 
extremely partial. As they grow older the more expensive 
food may be mixed with good barley meal to which grain may 
be added by degrees, while an abundance of grass should 
be placed at their disposal. 
With respect to the young of the more uncommon birds, 
particularly of such as frequent the sea, the breeder will require 
to consider the natural diet of the wild birds, and strive to 
imitate nature as nearly as possible. 
For example, Goosanders and Mergansers in the wild 
state subsist exclusively upon fish, selecting usually those 
from four to six inches in length; it will therefore be 
right when practicable to give small live fish, such as are 
ordinarily used as bait by anglers, larvee, water insects, and 
such forms of animal life as can be obtained. I would suggest 
experimenting with the grub of the caddis worm, tadpoles, 
ants eggs, slugs, meal worms, maggots, &c., if the amateur be 
fortunate enough to breed either the preceding species or any 
of the Scoters and Eider Ducks, 
If the pond be cemented all over it is well to supply duck 
weed, and pans of bottom mud and small gravel. 
When live animal food is not procurable, small pieces 
of raw mutton, beef, or other flesh may be pulled into fibres 
and offered to the newly-hatched birds. Study of the many 
beautiful works on ornithology will, if carefully pursued, throw 
much light upon the natural habits of waterfowl, and will tend 
to lessen the difficulty which undoubtedly exists in the 
acclimatisation of the rarer specimens of which this little 
Manual treats. 
