# American Pocket Library of Useful Knowledge/Birds

BIRDS.
DIRECTIONS FOR FEEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT.
Canaries become delicate and feeble from improper treatment. Their docility, beautiful plumage, and sweetness of notes, render them general favourites. When young, feed on a paste nude by bruising rape seed, blowing the chaff away, mixed with pieces of bread powdered. Give a teaspoonful with a little hard egg and a few drops of water, when turning sour, mix fresh. Add as they grow older, scalded rape seed without bruising, chopped almond and chickweed, in hot weather twice a day. If sick, give milk of hemp seed, made by bruising clean seed and straining it through linen into water, taking the water glass away from the sick. As they advance in age, give rape and canary, and occasionally bruised hemp seed, taking the soft food away by degrees. Cuttle-fish bone is preferable to loaf sugar. Cakes, apples, berries, bread soaked, the water squeezed out and milk added, are good, and cabbage occasionally, when in season, is excellent.
Peaches should be round and strong without crevices or shoulders for insects to breed or harbour, and every corner of the cage should be brushed out and kept thoroughly clean.
The Claws are sometimes so long as to occasion accidents by catching in the wires, in which case trim them.
Mortar placed in the cage facilitates the production of eggs.
Teach singing by separating the bird from the others, so that he may hear no singing, cover his cage for a few days with a thin cloth, then play your flageolet or bird organ several times each day, without harshness. At the end of fifteen days, change the thin cloth for a thick green or red serge, and keep covered till perfect in the air you wish to teach. Feed once a day and night. It is better to teach one good tune well than several imperfectly. The bird will copy all imperfections.
Bad or dull singers are improved by hearing the more spirited and perfect.
Surfeit indicated by swelling of lower part of body, and occasioned by too much chickweed, salad, or soft food. Put alum in the water for three or four days, or put a rusty nail in the water, or common salt. Put the bird, if bad, in lukewarm milk a few minutes, then wash with water, wipe and dry gently.
Sick Birds may have boiled bread and milk with canary seed boiled in it; lettuce seed, and when moulting, or renewing its feathers, indicated by drooping, putting its head under its wing, dropping small feathers, give nourishing food, as hemp seed, sponge, biscuit, &c., keep warm and quiet, and keep much in the sun. A cold air or draft is injurious. Put in the water a little refined liquorice.
Shy Larks.–Feed on seeds, but rarely on insects. Give salad leaves, gravel with a bit of green sod.
Red Bird.–Teed on seeds of all kinds, whortle-berries, cherries and other fruits, insects, &c.
American Yellow Bird.–Beautiful plumage and fine song. They are hardy, and the cage should be often hung out. Give plenty of water, gravel, rich oily seeds, with occasional sunflower and lettuce seeds; leaves of beet, salad, apples, and other fruits.
Gold Finch.–Treat similar to American Yellow Bird.
Cardinal Grosbeak.–Of splendid plumage and exquisite song. They are hardy and may be kept without fire in a room most of the winter, except in the northern states. Allow frequent air and sun. Feed on rough unhulled rice and hemp, wheat, brown gravel, cracked corn, and millet occasionally, with plenty of water for bathing. These birds are long lived, the Philadelphia Museum having one which died when twenty-one years old.
Java Sparrow.–Very delicate, with pretty plumage, but little music. Feed on unhulled rice and canary seed, with plenty of brown gravel.
Purple Finch or Linnet.–A delightful songster. Give canary, hemp, millet, and sun-flower seeds, with juniper and cedar berries through the winter, salad and beet tops in summer.
Any other of the Finch tribe may be fed on seeds generally, as the preceding. Perfect cleanliness of the cage, and a constant supply of fresh water and gravel are essential.
Baltimore Oriole.–A bird of delightful plumage and rich brilliant music, well repaying the utmost care. They eat fruit of all kinds, seeds, insects, &c. Give ​them a large cage, protection from frost, and an abundance of insects. Rear same as Mocking Bird.
East India Oriole.–Possesses greater musical powers, and is to be treated same as the Baltimore.
American Mocking Bird.–The sweet “Bird of many Voices,” imitating almost every variety of notes and sounds imaginable. Feed regularly every morning with Indian meal mixed with milk, not very stiff. Give wild cherries, cedar, elder, poke and whortle-berries. An occasional egg, boiled hard and grated; a little raw minced beef, water for washing as well as drink, with plenty of insects, grasshoppers, spiders, particularly during moulting, when they should be kept quiet and away from cold drafts of air.
Regular Feeding is important. Adopt a regular hour, say eight in the morning for feeding and watering, and strictly adhere to it.
If Sickly, treat kindly, give spiders daily, and meal worms; gravel the bottom of the cage and keep very quiet.
The Male has a regular line of white feathers in the wing, forming almost a regular curve from tip to shoulder.
American Robin.–Sprightly, beautiful and musical. Treat similar to Mocking Bird.
Red Bird or Bob-o’link.–Is apt to die in November, if too well fed. Give oats, buckwheat, and canary seed, and abundant water for bathing. At other seasons feed same indiscriminately, as the Finch tribe.
Red Wing or Swamp Blackbird. Treat same as Bob-o’link.
Chickweed or salad, which in proper season is excellent, are absolutely poison if given too early, before the bitterness is off, and the cold acrid juices are dissipated by the sun.