The Natural History of Cage Birds. Bechstein Johann Matthäus
goldfinches, siskins, canaries, fauvettes, red-breasts, all species of larks, quails, yellowhammers, buntings, blue-breasts, and redstarts may be seen eating out of the same dish.
Sometimes, as a delicacy, they may be given a little hemp, poppy, and rape-seed, crumbs of bread, and ants’ eggs. One of these is necessary for the birds of the third and fourth class.
Every morning fresh water must be given to the birds, both for drinking and bathing. When a great many are left at liberty, one dish will do for them all, about eight inches long and two in depth and width, divided into several partitions, by which means they are prevented from plunging entirely into the water, and in consequence making the place always dirty and damp9. A vessel of the same size and shape will do for holding the universal paste, but then it must have no partitions. Quails and larks require sand, which does for them instead of water for bathing.
Some birds swallow directly whatever is thrown to them: great care must be taken to avoid giving them anything with pepper on it, or bad meat. This must be a general rule. I shall also remark, that food sufficient for one day only must be given to birds kept in cages, for they are accustomed to scatter it about, picking out the best, and leaving only the worst for the next morning; this makes them pine, and puts, them out of humour.
Mr. Sweet’s food for soft-billed birds (sylviadæ). – The birds of this sort, though the finest songsters and most interesting of all the feathered tribe, have been less known or noticed than others, probably owing to the greater number only visiting us in summer, when the trees are so densely clothed with foliage that birds are not easily seen, and when heard sing are generally considered by those who hear them to be either blackbirds or thrushes, or some of the more common singing birds. When they are seen the greater number of them receive the general appellation of white-throat, without distinction, though this is rather singular, since they are all very distinct when examined, and their songs are all very different. If you speak to a bird-fancier or bird-catcher about any of them, you might as well talk of a bird in the wilds of America, for they know nothing of them. Many of them are therefore difficult to be procured in the neighbourhood of London, though most of them are plentiful there.
With care, the whole of them may be preserved in good health through the year, and many of them will sing through the greater part of the winter if properly managed. They require to be kept warm; the room in which they are should never be allowed to be below temperate, or they will suffer from it, particularly the tender sorts; at first the cold will make them lose their sight, after which they seldom recover. The redstart and nightingale are most subject to this; it sometimes also happens to the fauvette, and also to the whinchat.
When in a wild state, the birds of this sort feed principally on insects or fruit, and berries of various kinds. None of them are seed birds, so that they must be managed accordingly. The general food which I give them is hemp-seed, bruised up in boiling water, as small as it can be made; I then put to this about the same quantity, or rather more of bread, on which is also poured boiling water, and then the whole is bruised up together into a moist paste, particular care being required that there be very little or no salt in the bread; for should there be rather much it will kill the whole of the birds. The food should also be mixed up fresh every morning, as it soon spoils and turns sour, in which case the birds will not touch it, and sometimes it will make them go off their food altogether. When given to the birds, some fresh, raw, lean meat ought to be cut up small enough for them to swallow, and mixed with it I generally put about the same quantity of meat as paste, and sometimes they will peck out the meat and leave the paste; at other times they will eat the paste and leave the meat; but in general they eat it all up together, particularly where several different species are kept together in the same large cage, a plan which I consider by far the best, as they amuse each other, and keep one another warm in cold weather. Besides the above food, an egg should be boiled very hard, the yolk taken out and crumbled or cut in small pieces for them; the white they will not eat. One egg I consider enough for twenty birds for one day, with their other food, it being only intended as a change of diet, which they will not continue well in health without.
The sorts, which feed on insects when wild, should have some of these preserved for them through the winter, except where they can be procured at all seasons. At a baker’s shop, for instance, there are always plenty of meal-worms, crickets, and cockroaches, of which most of these birds are very fond: when those are not to be procured, a good substitute is the large white grubs that produce the cockchafers, which in some years are very plentiful, and may be kept in pots of turfy earth through the winter, as may also the maggots of the bluebottle fly, if procured late in the autumn; and they may be generally had as late as December. A quantity of these, kept in a pot of turfy earth in a cellar, or any other cool place, where they may not turn into flies too soon, is, I think, one of the best sorts of insects, and easiest kept and procured, for such birds through the winter. They will not touch them until they are well cleaned in the mould, but are then very fond of them, and a few every day keeps them in excellent health, and provokes them to sing.
Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert’s food for soft-billed birds. – Milk, which Mr. Sweet recommends, I have found very fatal to many of the soft-billed birds, and I never give it; but the blackcaps do not seem to suffer from it. They are very fond of a boiled carrot mashed and moistened, or beet-root boiled and mashed. A boiled carrot will keep fresh many days, in a basin of cold water, and is an excellent substitute for fruit in feeding them. Boiled cabbage, cauliflower, green peas are good for them; all sorts of puddings; a very little roast meat minced, I give them every day, and a little yolk of egg when it suits, but it is not necessary. The standard food is hemp-seed ground in a coffee-mill, and bread crumbs scalded and mashed up together, and fresh every day. They are very fond of ripe pears and elderberries (but elderberries stain the cage very much), currants, cherries, honeysuckle, and privet-berries.
Professor Rennie says, “I have more than once given the blackcap and other birds a little milk by way of medicine when they appeared drooping or sickly, and with manifest advantage10.”
BREEDING OF TAME BIRDS
House birds, being most of them reared like canaries, can only be made pair with great difficulty. When this object is accomplished, all of them require a large quiet place, a whole room if it can be had, in which branches of pine should be put, – a place, in fact, as much as possible resembling their natural abodes. But should you succeed in this respect, as you can never procure the materials which form the general base of their nests, it is better to give them artificial ones, made of the bark of the osier, straw, or even turnings of wood, in which it is only to put the soft stuff for lining, such as wool, the ravelings of silk, linen, or cotton, and the birds will take possession of it.
It is of consequence that the food for paired birds, and for the different ages of their young ones, should be chosen with judgment. I shall mention what must be done in this respect, in the articles relating to the different species of birds which I am going to describe in this work.
I must not omit two interesting observations which were communicated to me by a lady of my acquaintance. It sometimes happens, during a dry season, that the young birds are not hatched on the proper day, or are in danger of not being hatched at all; if, in this case they are plunged for one minute in water about their own warmth, and then replaced under the bird, the effect will be as quick as it is successful11.
For the same reason, sometimes the young birds remain without their feathers beyond the proper time; a tepid bath removes with such success the dryness of their quills, that in twenty-four hours after replacing them damp in their nest they are in general covered with feathers. I shall end this paragraph with showing at what time it is best to remove young wild birds from their nest when intended to be reared. It is when the quills of the tail feathers are come out, and the other feathers are begun to grow, the eyes not being quite open. If removed earlier, their stomach will be too weak to support their new food; if taken later, it will be very difficult to make them open their beaks to receive a food which is unknown to them. There are some species, however, that are so easily reared, that any time will answer.
DISORDERS OF TAME BIRDS
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If a rather large, flat, and not very deep vessel be used, in which the birds can bathe at their ease, it will make them more healthy and clean. – Translator.
White’s Selborne, 8vo. edit. 1833.
See Rennie’s “Habits of Birds,” p. 13. – Transl.