Delicate 
Birds. 
( 1 5 7 ) 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
it did not live better was simply that people 
would keep it in cages about eighteen inches 
across, in Avhich it could not possibly get proper 
exercise. In a flight I found it was quite an 
easy bird to keep. It is not much of a hopper, 
but wants room to fly about. 
The Two Mynahs. 
The Hill or Talking Mynah was reputed more 
delicate than the House Mynah. The reason 
was simple. The House Mynah is an active, 
omnivorous bird, like our Starling, the Hill 
Mynah a heavy, awkward one, feeding on fruit 
mostly. Fruit-eating birds have ravenous appe¬ 
tites, and, given a heavy bird in a small cage 
glutting itself on more nourishing food than 
fruit, the obvious result is plethora and fits. The 
Pied Mynah, on the other hand, did not do so 
well on satoo for the opposite reason, being 
specially insectivorous, so needed something 
extra. 
The Way Out of the Difficulty. 
It is, of course, impossible to entirely over¬ 
come the difficulties of keeping some species, 
which seem more highly strung interiorly—if I 
may so express it—than others; but my experi¬ 
ence leads me to this belief—that what birds 
want more than anything is plenty of space and 
natural food. Given these, I don’t think any 
species is beyond the power of aviculturists to 
manage. In the matter of space, one ought to 
cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth—keep 
small birds if one only has a little room, and so 
on. Seed and fruit eating birds are easily 
catered for, but the lover of insect-eaters should 
be constantly on the aui vive to find new sub¬ 
stitutes for the insect life his pets would natu¬ 
rally consume. In India raw fresh-water shrimps 
are procurable and well taken by insectivorous 
birds, and the tiny Crustacea found in our fresh 
waters might be tried here. 
The Starling. 
