390 
Parrot Finches. 
from purchasing any moi-e, and within ten days of my first 
buying them none were left. 
A year ago De \'on and Co. had another consignment 
and I of course went to see them, determined not to buy. 
Now the Pintail (Nonpareil) Pai"rot-Finch is a beauti- 
ful bird, to my mind even more beautiful than the Gouldian 
Finch, and when you get beauty coupled with apparent health 
one's good intentions are inclined to go to the wall; mine did 
at any rate, and I bought three pairs. 
On arriving home common sense retui'iiod and I knew 
perfectly well that I had to deal with birds that were in 
all probability in ill health, however well they looked, so 
decided to treat them as if they were. 
These birds are probably brought over in over-crowded 
and dirty cages, which means that they in all probability 
eat a lot of filth with their seed that can do them no good, 
and which would certainly give them stomach trouble, and 
so for this I treated them. 
I at once gave them a mild aperient mixed in warm 
water for the purpose of taking away at once as much as 
possible of the matter which would cause the trouble, and 
then after an hour or so took the drinking water away. 
In another two hours, more or less, I returned their 
water dish, this time adding to it a fairly strong dose of Ditch - 
field's Tonic Drops; this was given warm, the object to sup- 
ply a tonic to the system and something to cure the stomach 
trouble if it existed. 
The mixture was renewed, when it got cold for the 
first few days, when I only gave it every other day and 
did not trouble to warm it except for the tirst drink in the 
morning. 
As to food, they had paddy rice ad. lib., a little canary, 
white and Indian millet, all of which were eaten, and wlien 
they would eat them mealwoi'ms were given. 
The result of all this was that at the end of a week 
only one had died and I was greatly encouraged and decided 
to buy some more, one cock and two hens presumably, as 
I bought young birds which are dilficult to sex. 
1 now had four pairs and of these I lost one more 
