114 
BUBQEBIGAB. 
to pluck out tke stumps of the wing featkers that had been cut, hut 
it is better not to do so, as the longer they are dependent on their 
owner for locomotion, the less danger there will be of their relapsing 
into wildness, when they have regained the power of flight. 
White millet is the best food for these pretty little Parrots, but 
canary-seed may be added as a variety now and then; they require a 
constant supply of tufts of grass, and a handful of hay-seed thrown 
down on the aviary floor, will give them much pleasure, and keep them 
employed for hours: they also love to whittle a log of soft, or half 
rotten wood, and the aviarist who has the welfare of his pets at heart, 
will provide for their amusement, as well as for their bodily wants. 
It has been advised to give them egg food, and bread and milk 
sop; both are not only unnecessary, but injurious: we have, more than 
once, expressed our belief that many Parrots wmre partially insec- 
tivorous in their habits, but the Budgerigar is not of these: during 
a long and tolerably extensive experience with these birds, we have 
never seen one touch an insect of any description, although access to 
such diet was generally within their reach. 
When the Budgerigar has young ones to feed, he will require an 
addition to his ordinary diet, in the shape of oats, either given in 
their natural condition, or boiled until soft, strained, and loft to grow 
cold: the crumb of stale white bread, soaked in cold water, and then 
squeezed nearly dry, will also be necessary, for half-a-dozen young 
Parrots take a good deal of feeding, and there is danger, if only dry 
food is allowed, of the supplies falling short, and the young growing 
up either stunted or deformed. 
Upon the father devolves the principal part of the duty of reai’ing 
the little ones, no less than of providing for the wants of the female 
while she is sitting on her eggs; for unlike the Cockatiel, the male 
Budgerigar takes no part in the task of incubation, and it will be 
readily understood that an abundant supply of food requiring com- 
paratively little preparation will enable him to fulfil his important duties 
with less strain on his own organization, than if all the edible substances 
placed at his disposal were dry seeds that had to be three parts 
digested in his own crop, before they become fit for assimilation by 
the little ones. In Southern Australia, where the Budgerigars are 
found, they feed exclusively on the seeds of the indigenous grasses, 
which, at that season of the year, are soft, or at least never as dry 
and hard as the millet and canary-seed that are given to them in this 
country; and as one of the first conditions of a successful rearing of 
foreign birds in captivity, is to assimilate their diet as closely as possible 
to that of which they partake in their native woods, no more need be 
