ON HAND-REARING BIRDS. 
27 
CHAPTER IV. 
ON HAND-BEARING BIRDS. 
The subject of food, discussed in my last chapter, may be fitly 
followed by hints on rearing young birds by hand. Although this 
will chiefly affect British cage-birds, there may be cases in which 
the treatment will have to be applied to foreigners. 
After varied experience in hand-rearing British nestlings, I am 
convinced that the old method of giving meat to the young of any 
but carnivorous birds is utterly wrong ; and, in nine cases out of 
ten, terminates in the death of the young birds from diarrhoea, 
cramp, or fits. 
It would naturally be supposed that seed-eaters would be easier 
to rear than insectivorous birds, but this is far from being the case ; 
indeed, I consider them more uncertain ; probably the young of 
Pinches when hand-reared miss the partial digestion which is carried 
on in the crop of the parent before the food is regurgitated for their 
benefit. Many of the insect-eating birds, and especially the Thrushes, 
swallow and regurgitate dry insects several times in order to 
thoroughly moisten them before passing them into the mouths of 
their young, just as I remember to have seen a nurse moisten a 
sponge cake in her mouth before giving it to a baby ; the idea was 
horrible, but I daresay the result was beneficial. 
For the above reasons, the best results are always obtained when 
the food given to very young birds is mixed very moist, and I have 
found a drop of water administered with the little finger at the end 
of a meal very much appreciated by baby birds. 
As I prefaced the study of aviculture by collecting eggs and 
nests, it can readily be understood that the first birds 1 ever kept 
were Britishers, taken from the nest when about eight days old and 
hand-reared. I began with the easiest. — Missel Thrush, Song 
Thrush, Blackbird, Starling— and reared a good many, losing very 
few. I used to feed them chiefly on a paste made of two parts oat 
Hour (“ fig dust,” so called), and one part pea flour, with the 
addition of small worms, smooth caterpillars, and snails dropped 
into hot water, taken from the shells and cut up ; it w'as messy 
work ! I tried raw beef once or twice, but finding that it gave the 
birds diarrhoea, and that one or two died from cramp, I discontinued 
it, with much more satisfactory results. 
Although the coarser birds can easily be reared upon the above 
food, I found later on that a mixture of stale bread, yolk of egg, 
and ants’ eggs agree better with the youngsters ; therefore I al ways 
recommend it in preference to the other. 
I often wish I had been able to arrange my holidays at a time 
when more of the smaller insectivorous birds were ready to take, 
