298 GENERAL DIRECTIONS. given to house birds, appropriate to the different species: millet or canary-seed, a little hemp-seed, white bread soaked in water, and lettuce or endive, to those which feed on seeds; with a few more meal-worms or ants' eggs to those that eat insects. All should have bread soaked in boiled milk, warmth, and baths. This will sufficiently indicate the line of treatment, at this the most critical crisis of bird life; warmth and nourishing diet are the chief requisites. The drink should be water impregnated with iron. Age. This is a malady, if it may be so termed, for which there is no cure. When their time comes, birds like men must die; but the period of life depends greatly upon the care taken of the patient, the nature of its food, &c. Of the average duration of life which obtains among wild birds, we have no means of judging correctly, and there are so many circumstances which affect that of those in confinement, that we cannot take it as a criterion: we know that Parrots have lived in confinement for a century or more, and several kinds of Finches for twenty-four years, and even the Nightingale, that most delicate of cage birds, has attained that age in a state of domestication, and cannot be taken as a standard. We must here bring our practical remarks to a conclusion let us do so with a few GENERAL DIRECTIONS. Give cage birds as much air and light as possible, without exposing them to cold draughts and glare of hot sunshine. Take care that they have no sudden changes of temperature, and that the air they breathe be free from noxious vapours. The smell of fresh paint will quickly kill them, as will often that of escaped gas, or any other offensive odour. Never let them hang in moist reek or steam. When newly caught they must be accustomed gradually to the confined air of the house. Keep them clean. Feed them regularly and sparingly; if you cram them you kill them; and treat them at all times with the greatest gentleness and tenderness. |