40 
TALKING-BIRDS. 
plenty of the best food proper for him. Two days in each week feed him on 
nothing but fresh bread and milk, in which there is mixed some hempseed; 
do not let the quantity of hempseed exceed a tea-spoonful for a day’s con¬ 
sumption; along with the hempseed you may throw in a black peppercorn. 
Bechstein appears to think that water-cresses are a certain cure for con¬ 
sumption. lie says, “ The birds should be fed with the best description of 
their appropriate food. In birds which will eat vegetables we have always 
found this, and especially water-cresses, the surest remedy against consump¬ 
tion and waste.” If treated according to the above directions as soon as 
the symptoms become manifest, the disease may be speedily eradicated. 
Some parrots (especially the lories) are subject to fits. They will tumble 
off their perches, and after a few convulsive struggles lie as if dead. When 
this happens, squirt the coldest water you can get over its head. If this 
does not revive the bird, take him by the legs and dip him three or four 
times into a pan of cold water. If he should still remain insensible, pluck 
out a tail feather and lay him on the warm stones. If after this he does not 
recover, you may make up your mind if you will have him buried or stuffed. 
Parrots subject to fits should occasionally have administered to them a little 
spirits of nitre. Pour half a dozen drops on to their bread and milk. There 
is nothing more likely to produce fits than costiveness. You may know when 
a bird is so afflicted by his constant and useless efforts to relieve himself. 
A little saffron boiled in their milk will usually cure this, but if it does not, 
you should give the bird four drops of castor-oil. It is no easy matter to 
administer castor-oil to a full-grown and strong-beaked parrot unless you 
know how. The best way is to have a piece of hard wood or bone, about a 
quarter of an inch thick and three quarters wide: in the centre of this there 
must be a small hole; open the bird’s beak, put in the piece of wood, so as 
to keep it open, put a quill tlirough the hole in the wood, and pour the 
castor-oil through the quill. 
Sudden changes in the weather, or want of proper care as regards warmth, 
will sometimes produce inflammation. The symptoms of this disease are 
melancholy and a disposition to go to roost while it is yet daylight. If you 
blow up the feathers of the belly, you will find the extreme parts much 
swollen and a multitude of tiny red veins showing through the skin. This 
is a dangerous malady, and should be seen to in time. If the bird’s bowels 
are relaxed, give him, until he gets better, as much magnesia as can be piled 
on a dime. His diet should be bread and milk and maw seed. A little port 
wine in his water will do him no harm. As the magnesia will sink, you 
had better put it in a vessel so shallow that the bird will be sure to disturb 
and partake of it when ho goes to drink. Some parrot-keepers cure their 
birds of relaxation by giving them Indian corn that has been boiled in rice- 
water. 
Impure water, stale food, or want of sand, will produce surfeit. The 
head, and sometimes the back, becomes covered with angry sores, which 
discharge a humor of so acrid a character that wherever it runs it removes 
