THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CAGE BIRDS: THEIR MANAGEMENT, HABITS, FOOD, DISEASES, TREATMENT, BREEDING, AND THE METHODS OF CATCHING THEM. BY J. M. BECHSTEIN, M.D., &c. &c., OF WALTERSHAUSEN, IN SAXONY. [Illustration] A NEW EDITION. LONDON: GROOMBRIDGE AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW. [Illustration: GOLDEN ORIOLE.] AUTHOR'S PREFACE. The Natural History of CAGE BIRDS, which I now lay before the public, is a work I have long been solicited to write. There are many people who like to keep birds, who neither know their habits nor the proper treatment or food requisite for them. Even those who are not altogether ignorant of these, often have but very limited, superficial, and, what is worse, sometimes erroneous ideas on the subject. It is for such readers I have given the following Introduction; for professed naturalists will find nothing there but what they have already learnt, either from my own works or from those of other authors on natural history. If long experience and minute observation on the subject of his work is calculated to gain an author credit, I flatter myself that this will not be denied me, since from my earliest youth I have delighted in being surrounded with birds, and am so accustomed to them that I cannot write at my desk with pleasure, or even with attention, unless animated by the warbling of the pleasing little creatures which enliven my room. My passion is carried so far, that I always have about thirty birds around me, and this has naturally led me to consider the best and easiest mode of procuring them, as well as of feeding and preserving them in health. Few amateurs, therefore, are better fitted than myself to write on this subject; and I hope I have done it to the satisfaction of the public. I ought also to notice in this place the plan of my work, as my book may fall into the hands both of those who might feel a wish to learn more particulars, and of those who may think much less would have sufficed. I have described all the indigenous European birds with which I am acquainted that are capable of being tamed, and are pleasing in the house. As to foreign ones, I have only spoken of those I have occasionally seen in Germany, and which can be procured without much difficulty. I have followed the same plan in their natural history which I have pursued in my other works on birds. DESCRIPTION.--Under this head I have entered into particular details, in order that the amateur may the better satisfy himself in discriminating the species and the sex of the bird before him. This knowledge is exceedingly necessary, as the bird-dealers are not very scrupulous in deceiving their customers, either by selling one species for another, or a female for a male. These descriptions may likewise have the advantage of inspiring a taste for ornithology in the bosom of a mere amateur, who may, by repeated observations, afterwards enrich this branch of natural history with his own remarks.