CAGE AND SINGING BIRDS. 
145 
materials, for obvious reasons. We will now devote a little 
space to the consideration of the . 
DISEASES 
to which parrots are especially liable : — Irritability^ and a 
desire to pluck out the feathers, is occasioned, as we have 
already stated, by giving- these birds animal food, which 
should always be carefully avoided; it is altogether unnatura/ 
to them, they being, with two or three exceptions, purely 
frugivorous and granivorous birds. When this mistake 
is made, and its bad effects follow, apply to the body of the 
sufferer a lotion made of common salt dissolved in spring 
water, once a day, and give it nothing but bread and milk 
to eat for a time. Several internal diseases may be pre- 
vented by giving about once a month a few of the pepper 
pods called chilies, cut into pieces; these the birds will 
eagerly swallow, as if they knew they were designed for a 
salutary effect. 
Asthma is a disease with which parrots are, perhaps, more 
frequently attacked than any other bird ; its causes are, a 
cold caught through being allowed to remain in a draught 
of air, or an undue proportion of hemp-seed in the food, this 
being of too heating a nature to be given constantly ; its 
symptoms are, shortness of the breath, and a frequent 
expansion of the beak when the bird is in any way excited ; its 
remedies — extra warmth, change of food, if that previously 
given has been chiefly dry, now let it be moist and warm : 
in severe attacks, give a paste made by boiling a piece of 
white bread about the size of a walnut, in four tablespoon- 
fuls of milk, stirring with a wooden spoon until it becomes an 
even pulp ; mix with it a few grains of cayenne pepper, and 
keep the bird entirely on it for two or three days ; it must 
be prepared fresh as wanted, as if at all sour, it will prove 
injurious ; as an aperient, give also about twice a week a 
small portion of lettuce or water-cress. 
Atrophy or Wasting, generally caused by the admin- 
istration of improper food. Sym^ptoms: body becomes 
emaciated; feathers rough, and disarranged; disgorging 
of the food : treatment similar to that above recommended, 
with the addition of a rusty nail put into the water. 
,t I Consumption or Decline, — No assignable cause: loss 
' I ^ 
