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.