In confinement it may be let run about; it soon grows so tame as to come when called, and feed from the hand. Its rapid motions and races are amusing; but it must not be allowed to fly high enough to get on the tables and furniture, as it would soon dirty them. It sings better and longer when caged. The cage should be, like the nightingale's, large enough for the bird not to spoil its beautiful feathers; the tail-feathers easily drop if they are rubbed. FOOD.--When wild the blue-breast feeds on all sorts of insects; it also eats elderberries. In confinement it must at first be fed with ants' eggs, meal-worms, and even some earth-worms. If it is kept uncaged these things must be thrown upon the universal paste, which it will thus learn to relish; but though it is easily reconciled to it, ants' eggs, earth and meal-worms, must nevertheless be occasionally supplied, or it will soon die in decline. When caged it is fed like nightingales, and on that food it will live seven or eight years. It is a great eater, and can devour in a day its own weight of the first universal paste, so that it mutes incessantly. It requires a constant supply of fresh water for drinking and bathing: it wets itself so much that it is completely drenched. I have observed for several successive years that it never bathes till the afternoon[95]. DISEASES.--Diarrhoea and decline are its commonest disorders. The treatment has been pointed out in the Introduction. MODE OF TAKING.--I often hear it said that the blue-breast is a rare bird; that in some parts of Germany it appears only every five, or even ten, years, but I can declare that this opinion arises from a want of observation. Since I have taught my neighbours to be more attentive to the time of their passage, they every year catch as many as they please. If in the first fortnight of April, up to the 20th, cold and snow return, plenty may be found by merely following the streams, rivers, and ponds, especially in the neighbourhood of a wood. A proper place is chosen, near the water and a bush, meal and earth worms are thrown there, with limed twigs, and soon these poor birds, if ever so little pushed towards it fall blindly into the snare; they also fall into white-throat traps and nightingale nets. In autumn, when they frequent cabbage grounds to hunt for caterpillars, plenty may be caught by planting here and there sticks with limed twigs fastened to them, baited with meal-worms. At this season they sometimes go to the water trap, but this is not usual. If it happens that any are caught in nooses or spring traps baited with elderberries, hunger must have been the cause, and they must have been entirely destitute of food.