402 
NOTES TO THE 
The following is a list of the birds collected, and which were 
ready packed : 
100 Blackhinls 110 Goldfinches 
100 Thnislies 180 Yellowhanimers 
140 Hedgesparrows 100 Partridges 
100 Starlings 120 Redpoles 
100 Linnets 
Total .... 1,050 
The birds wei'e packed as follow^s : — Starlings in four cages, 
tliree feet long. Thrushes and blackbirds, in cages three feet long, 
having four divisions, one bird in each division, and in all fifty 
cages. Linnets, twelve in a cage of eighteen inches. Yellow- 
hammers, twelve in a cage. Hedgesparrows, all in separate cages. 
I was informed by JNIr. W. Barnes, of 145, Cannon-street, who 
assisted in the collection, and found the necessary acconmioda- 
tion while being collected, that the food taken out consisted of 
eighteen bushels of canary seed, hemp, flax, rape, buckwheat, 
wheat, cracked maize, and mawseed ; Spratt's patent food, Ger- 
man paste, flour for bread-making ; lard, treacle, and pea meal 
for German paste, and four tons of sand. Thus it will be 
seen that the commissariat of these birds is a matter of no 
slight moment. The birds w^ere all packed on board ship in a 
house built on purpose, about midship, fourteen feet by twelve; 
there was a small separate house for the partridges, which are 
nervous birds, and are apt to knock themselves about on the 
least provocation. Mr. Bills, of course, went with the birds, and 
this was quite a suftlcient guarantee that every care and attention 
would be shown to them. 
Mr. Barnes reports (Nov. 187o) the result of this experiment 
as follows. Landed : — 
Blackbirds and thrnslies 191 
Hedgesparrows . . . . . .11 
Starlings ........ 33 
Linnets ........ 95 
Goldfinches 110 
Yellowliammers . . . . . .180 
Partridges ....... 74 
Eedpoles 120 
Total . . .814 
My friend Mr. Cholmondeley, of Condover Hall, Shrewsbury, 
is about to go himself to the West Indies to see if he cannot 
bring humming-birds home to England alive. The difficulty is 
to procure insect food for the voyage. Mr. Bartlett has sug- 
gested that large numbers of earwigs should be scalded and 
