128 
BEATJTirUL BIEDS. 
Its food, during confinement is boiled rice, mixed up 
with soft eggs, together with plantains, and living 
insects of the grasshopper tribe ; these insects, when 
thrown to him, the bird contrives to catch in its beak 
with great celerity ; it will eat insects in a living 
state, but will not touch them when dead. 
The bird is not at all ravenous in its habits of 
feeding, but it eats rice leisurely, almost grain by 
grain. Shonld any of the insects thrown into his 
cage fall upon the fioor, he will not descend to them, 
appearing to be fearful that in so doing he should soil 
his delicate plumage; he therefore seldom or never 
descends, except to perform his ablutions in the pan 
of water placed at the bottom of the cage expressly 
for his use. 
