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glance  when  the  food  supply  is  getting  low,  and  also  enables  the  bird  to  see 
and  choose  its  food  in  greater  comfort,  and  may  thereby  help  to  prevent  some 
of  the  wasteful  scattering  indulged  in  by  some  birds.  Covered  vessels  should 
be  employed  to  further  assist  economy  in  this  direction.  For  the  drinking 
vessels,  only  glass  or  glazed  pottery  should  be  used,  with  the  single  exception  of 
show  cage  drinkers,  which,  on  account  of  their  frequent  journeyings  to  and  from 
shows,  and  the  great  risk  of  breakage  to  which  glass  or  china  drinkers  would 
be  exposed,  not  to  speak  of  the  less  obvious  risk  of  courting  suspicion,  should 
be  of  zinc. 
A  WARNING  NOTE. 
The  one  main  point  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  connection  with  metal  drinkers 
of  any  kind  is  that  medicines  should  never,  under  any  circumstances,  be  ad- 
ministered in  them,  as  there  is  always  a  probability  of  some  ingredient  in  the 
medicine  acting  chemically  upon  the  metal  and  converting  the  contents  of  the 
vessel  into  a  harmful  or  even  poisonous  solution.    In  small  cages  of  this  kind 
egg  food  or  other  similar  dainties  may 
just  as  easily  be  supplied  in  a  finger 
drawer  pushed  between  the  wires,  as  in 
the  usual  type  of  egg  drawer,  and  green 
stuff  it  is  sufficient  to  just  loop  round 
a  wire  at  the  end  of  a  perch. 
In  breeding  and  moulting  cages, 
however,  provision  must  be  made  for 
an  egg  drawer  of  the  ordinary  size  to 
slip  in  the  front,  or  the  grooved  front 
egg  drawers,  which  are  placed  beneath  the  door  of  punched  bar  fronts  with  the 
bottom  bar  of  the  door  pressed  down  in  the  groove,  must  be  used.  It  is  an 
advantage  of  this  latter  kind  of  egg  drawer  that  there  is  no  necessity  to  cut 
holes  in  the  front  of  the  cages,  and  when  the  bottom  of  the  door  is  pressed 
down  in  the  groove  across  the  front  of  the  egg  drawer,  and  the  back  of  the 
drawer  supported,  as  it  will  be,  by  the  perch  running  lengthwise  across  the 
front  of  the  cage  to  enable  the  birds  to  get  easy  access  to  the  food  and  water 
holes,  they  fit  quite  securely.  The  small  finger  drawers  are  also  most  useful 
for  giving  minute  quantities  of  special  foods,  or  tit-bits,  or  medicines  to  birds 
in  these  larger  cages  or  aviaries,  but  they  must  be  used  as  an  addition  to,  and 
not  in  place  of,  the  ordinary  full  size  fittings. 
A  FINGER  DRAWER,  to  go  between  the 
cage  wires. 
VARIETY   IN   NEST  PANS. 
No  other  fittings  than  these  will  be  required  for  a  moulting  cage,  but  to 
complete  the  furnishing  of  the  breeding  cage  when  ready  to  commence  the 
season's  operations,  a  proper  nesting  receptacle  will  be  the  most  important  and 
