CAGE BIRDS. 
5G3 
lettuce or groundsel in season, and an occasional tid-bit in 'the form 
of egg food. An excellent recipe for egg food is to mix a hard-boiled 
egg, grated fine, with half the amount of fresh pulverized cracker, and 
a spnnkling of Cayenne pepper. The English breeders sift in a little 
powdered sugar also. 
It is an excellent principle to trust to the sagacity of the reputable 
bird dealer, and shun the drug store and grocery when purchasing 
seed. Ground clav is freelv mixed with bird seed to make it profitable 
Horwk.7 Canaries.' 
in the scales, and the bii d dealer is the only man engaged in handling 
seed who can not make this deadly adulteration pay. He is forced in 
self protection to keep pure, clean seed, or suffer a ruinously high death 
rate in his cages. Then, every singer should be supplied with a cuttle- 
bone on which to whet his bill, and the bottom of his cage should be 
liberally strewn with silver sand or fine gravel, changed every day, or 
at least once in two days. Pure drinking water is essential to health 
and song, and the requirements of cleanliness also demand the intro- 
duction of a shallow bathing dish into the cage several times a week, 
according to the partiality of the individual singer to a morning dip. 
There is no such thing as lump sugar, cake, and the hundred and 
one harmful luxuries with which ladies insist in murdering their pets. 
