TUBQUOISINS. 
79 
will keep tkem in splendid health for years, particularly if they live 
in a well-grassed aviary out of doors: in the house, too much green 
food is apt to induce diarrhaea, and groundsel must be given sparingly, 
unless small and grown on very poor ground: but tufts of grass in 
flower will afford a rich treat which we have never known to disagree. 
Egg-binding is a troublesome and too often fatal complication, of 
which the cause, or causes, are somewhat obscure, and which, in point 
of fact, is more readily prevented than cured. It may, we think, be 
taken for granted that a bird that suffers from egg-binding is a weak 
birdj consequently the aviarist should see that his pairs are in vigorous 
health, before he thinks of putting them up for breeding, or certain 
disappointment will be the result. If the cock is weak, the eggs run 
a great chance of being sterile, and if the hen is not in good health, 
either she will not lay, or will be egg-bound, or, worst fatality of all, 
she will die on her nest, after having deposited her eggs, or when 
her young brood are half-reared. 
Here again prevention is preferable to cure, and if the birds are 
young, strong, and have plenty of room for exercise, not much need 
be feared: they will set about the work of reproducing their species 
with commendable assiduity, and their owner will derive not only 
pleasure, but profit, from their endeavours, for, as we have said, they 
are prohfic in captivity, and the young of one season will, themselves, 
be parents in the next. An esteemed correspondent writes: “I think 
a great source of egg-binding is from the birds being too fat, from a 
continual diet of seed; I have found it so among poultry. Pullets 
when first beginning to lay are very liable to it when fed on maize, 
which makes them also very fat.” 
It has been remarked that in-breeding is very prejudicial to some 
species, but is not particularly so in the case of the Turquoisinej 
though how far the sib-crossing might be carried with impunity, is 
somewhat difficult to determine: in any case the aviarist will do well 
to introduce new blood occasionally, and should he chance to notice 
any deterioration, either in point of colour, or of size, or strength, in 
his in-bred birds, he should, at once, separate the related pairs, and 
mate them with birds of a strange stock, but, of course, of the same 
species. 
As we have seen it stated that the Turquoisine is a quarrelsome 
and tyrannical bird, we can but repeat, that we have not found it to 
be so, and such is also the opinion of Dr. Euss, who observes: “Mn 
reizendes VogehJien, weMies ehensowol an FarbenpracJd, als auch an 
Anmuth und Liehenswurdigheit in der grossen Mannigfaltigleeit aller 
Stuhenvdgel iilerhauft einen hohen Bang einnimmt.” (A charming little 
