HOW TO FEED BIRDS. 
23 
and foreign, it will be wisest for you to do as I do, get some 
galvanised iron boxes ready (sanitary dust-bins, in fact, made square) 
and get these important seeds in, two bushels at a time ; seed keeps 
perfectly in these covered boxes, and no mice can get at it. 
The seeds of next importance are hemp and German rape, which 
I get by the bushel, and keep each in a box of its own ; then, if you 
have Doves and Parrots, dari will be required in quantity ; that is 
to say, a peck at a time, which can be kept in a large square biscuit 
tin, upon a shelf, or on the top of one of your flight cages. Of other- 
seeds which the owner of many birds should get by the gallon, are 
maize, sunflower (both the large and small varieties), sesame*, 
Indian millet, oats, and wheat ; and of seeds purchased by the pint 
— teazle, thistle, if obtainable, mixed grass seed, and maw seed. 
For the more delicate soft-food eaters, the best basis is, in my 
opinion, provided by Huntly & Palmer’s mixed broken biscuits, at 
3d per pound. Grind the biscuits to powder in a coffee mill, and 
keep dry in tins ready for use. The next ingredient is preserved 
yolk of egg, either in flake or powder, which can be purchased from 
most of the larger dealers and importers. 1 prefer the flake myself, 
because if rubbed between the hands before using, it is reduced to a 
size which birds can easily pick up and swallow, whereas in the 
powder form a good deal is wasted, in the food left over at the end 
of each day. 
Ants’ eggs form a third ingredient of value in insectivorous 
food, and dried flies may be added if the bird-lover wishes ; per- 
sonally I prefer to mix in a certain quantity of some widely 
recognised wholesome food, such as Abrahams’ Insectivorous Bird 
Food, Arthur’s, Fulljames’, or Gasparin’s, my only objection to the 
last-named being its smell of aniseed or some such unpleasant 
ingredient (which, although doubtless a good stomachic, the birds 
have to get used to before they will eat it freely). 
Of the fruits most valuable, because obtainable for a great part of 
the year, and generally liked by fruit-eating birds, may be specially 
mentioned— bananas, sweet- water grapes, oranges (when ripe), pears, 
and apples. When oranges become scarce or sour, it is generally 
possible to get pears ; if neither are satisfactory, apples, baked and 
mixed with castor sugar, will do fairly well. 
At the proper season many of the small fruits and berries grown 
in this country make a pleasant change, but these should be given 
with judgment, not recklessly. Some years since I had six Pine 
Grosbeaks sent to me as a present from Canada, and the gentleman 
who kindly brought them over for me informed me that the 
favourite food of these birds in Canada consisted of berries of the 
mountain ash. As I had a tree with berries on in my garden, I 
offered the birds a bunch, which poisoned two of them. I am told 
that the Canadian mountain ash is not the same as ours, but 
* Sesame Reed is kept by Messrs. Prasclikauer & Co., of 112 Fenchurch 
Street, London ; also of Liverpool, Manchester, and Hull. 
