30 
HINTS ON CAGE-BIRDS. 
them, were rather troublesome to rear, and did not survive the 
winter ; and, as for the Cuckoo, although it will eat anything and 
everything that you like to offer I never want to rear another. 
One of the principal things in rearing birds is to keep them 
warm at night. At first keep them in the nest in which they are 
found, and cover them with flannel ; the nest may be fixed in 
a basket of hay (with a lid to shut up), but, in the case of Skylarks, 
of which I have reared a good number, get a long cage (a Lark- 
runner), cut a round hole in a turf, fix in this a Whitethroat’s 
nest, and throw a folded flannel over it at night. Don’t try Swifts ; 
they are not satisfactory, and do not live long, though they will eat 
the usual mixture. 
CHAPTER V. 
ON SEXUAL DIFFERENCES. 
To any aviculturist who keeps more than a dozen or so birds in 
cages for song or plumage, the idea of increasing his stock by 
breeding must seem most desirable. Before he can effect this, it is 
necessary that he should convince himself, as far as possible, that 
his breeding stock is correctly paired. 
In many cases it is easy to see at a glance the differences which 
distinguish the sexes of birds ; either the plumage is quite dissimilar, 
or the males are ornamented with crests, tufts, wattles, or such like 
distinctive characters, which indicate their sex. On the other hand, 
there are many birds so similar in the sexes that it requires study 
and a trained eye to pair them correctly, and although in many 
cases a man may make a lucky hit by pairing a sprightly, upstand- 
ing bird with a heavier and more quiet-looking one, the result is by 
no means invariably satisfactory. 
For some years past I have devoted a good deal of time to the 
study of this subject, but there still remains an immense deal to be 
learnt before we can, in all cases, be sure of sexing our birds with 
certainty; even song does not in all cases indicate a cook-bird, for 
the hens of many birds sing almost, if not quite, as well as their 
mates. I never heard the hen of a wild Skylark sing, but I had 
a hand-reared hen which strutted about with erected crest, and 
sang remarkably well ; indeed, 1 was doubtful whether it might 
not be a small cock-bird until it deposited an egg on the floor 
of its aviary. 
The sexes of the true Thrushes can be told by comparing the 
birds side by side, the males being longer than the females, with 
narrower crowns, and longer, more slender bills. Some of the 
