io6 
Our  Canaries 
some  young  Thrushes,  and  putting  some  of  it  meanwhile  in  an  egg-drawer  for 
some  young  Canaries,  which  devoured  it  eagerly.    The  liver  was  boiled  hard. 
It  is  interesting  in  this  connection  to  point  out  that  liver  boiled  until 
hard,  grated,  and  mixed  with  a  little  meal  has  long  been  known  to  poultry 
breeders  as  one  of  the  finest  substitutes  for  insect  food  for  young  chickens 
hatched  early  in  the  year,  when  natural  insect  food  is  unobtainable.  Some 
other  fanciers  have  experimented  with  meat  meals  prepared  for  feeding  poultry 
and  pheasants  with  a  good  deal  of  success,  whilst  one  well-known  and  promi- 
nent fancier,  during  the  debate  in  question,  described  his  method  of  preparing 
grated  beef  by  hanging  it  in  a  dry  oven  until  it  was  thoroughly  dried  through- 
out, when  it  could  be  easily  grated  for  use  on  a  nutmeg  grater. 
TO  GRATIFY  A  CRAVING. 
Another  method  of  supplying  flesh  for  a  definite  purpose  has  been 
brought  to  our  notice  by  more  than  one  amateur  breeder,  who  claim  to  have 
used  it  with  signal  success  for  the  special  purpose  alluded  to.  In  this  case  a 
scrap  of  raw  lean  beef  or  mutton  is  fastened  in  the  wires  at  the  end  of  a  perch 
when  a  hen  that  is  rearing  young  commences  to  pluck,  and  suck  the  quills. 
The  plan  is  said  to  be  quite  successful,  in  that  the  hen  supplies  the  evident 
craving  that  possesses  her  for  the  time  being  by  pecking  and  sucking  at  the 
meat,  and  the  young  thereby  escape  her  unwelcome  attention.  Whether  this 
craving  is  natural  or  not  we  need  not  stay  to  enquire,  but  when  we  reflect 
that  although  by  nature  a  seed-eating  bird,  it  is  more  than  probable  that,  as 
with  almost,  if  not  every  seed-eating  species  in  a  state  of  nature,  a  certain 
amount  of  insect  food  is  partaken  of  as  a  necessity  at  certain  seasons,  and 
therefore  a  kind  of  instinctive  craving  for  insect  food  is  still  inherited  in  greater 
or  less  degree  by  our  domestic  Canaries — a  craving  which,  through  long 
generations  of  forcible  suppression  has,  in  the  species  as  a  whole,  become 
dormant,  and  of  little  or  no  effect,  yet  in  individuals  showing  a  tendency  to 
revert  back  to  the  original  stock,  may  become  an  effective  principle  and  cause 
the  subject  to  seek  to  satisfy  the  desire  by  canibalistic  attacks  on  the  young, 
or  by  devouring  the  tender  quills  of  the  sprouting  plumage. 
A  POINT  IN  FAVOUR. 
Supposing  this  theory  were  correct,  there  is  no  other  time  in  all  the  year 
when  the  tendency  for  it  to  break  out  and  become  operative  is  stronger  than 
when  she  is  undergoing  the  excitement  of  rearing  a  brood  of  young,  and 
another  clutch  of  eggs  simultaneously  developing  in  the  ovary — a  combination 
of  circumstances  which  would  appear  to  invariably  accompany  the  vice.  The 
circumstantial  evidence  in  favour  of  the  theory  is  rather  strong,  and  has  not 
diminished  since  we  first  pointed  out  this  possible  explanation  of  the  vice 
several  years  ago.     Nevertheless,  this  proposed  remedy  is  given  wholly  on 
