ON ARRANGEMENTS FOR BREEDING. 
35 
CHAPTER VI. 
ON ARRANGEMENTS FOR BREEDING. 
When you liave decided what birds you wish to breed, and have 
sexed them to your satisfaction, the next thing is to prepare the 
breeding-cages or aviaries for their reception. It does not follow, 
because you may have bred Canaries successfully in the ordinary 
cages sold for that purpose, that you will be able to breed other 
birds in the same manner, or with equal ease. 
Thrushes as a rule are not very shy birds ; and although they 
prefer a little privacy, they may be (and have been) induced to 
breed quite successfully even in a large cage. In an aviary a few 
rough branches artistically arranged in a corner will afford all the 
privacy which they need ; and for some species, if good-sized boxes, 
of the cigar-box pattern, are provided as nesting receptables, even 
the little cover and support offered by naked branches will not be 
necessary. Eor these and all insectivorous birds you must be 
prepared to provide abundance of living food, or the young will 
probably be thrown out of the nest when quite unable to provide 
for themselves. 
I should not expect to be successful in breeding Warblers, 
excepting in a large outdoor aviary, well-furnished with shrubs, 
brambles and nettles ; a small wilderness, enclosed and netted in, 
would be most suitable. Even then much insect food would have 
to be added to that which the birds could secure in the limited 
space devoted to them. A similar wild aviary wonld also be most 
satisfactory for Pekin Nightingales (which, although very tame in 
captivity, are by nature the most shy of skulking birds), of Bulbuls, 
■Fruit and Honey-suckers, Sugar-birds, and Tanagers. 
Finches vary enormously in their fancies. Chaffinches will 
build either in bnslies or on branches; bat, as a rule, they do not 
like their nests to be too conspicuous ; consequently they make 
them of the materials nearest to hand (or I should say “ to beak ”), 
and thus occasionally render them remarkably conspicuous ; thus 
I took a nest from an elm hedge on the margin of a wood the 
whole outside of which was thickly covered with white lichen from 
a tree a few yards off ; it stood out like a large Guelder-rose against 
the green foliage. 
The Alario Finch, and all the Serin group, will build in boxes 
or Hartz cages, generally preferring the latter, which are also 
chosen by Goldfinches. 
The Buntings seem to prefer to build their nests openly in 
bushes ; but green Cardinals, with me, built in a large suspended 
wicker cage which I received from India ; they feed their young at 
first largely upon egg-food, like the true Finches previously 
