The Natural History of Cage Birds: Their Management, Habits, Food, Diseases, Treatment, Breeding, and the Methods of Catching Them.Bechstein, Johann Matthäus
Science
The Natural History of Cage Birds: Their Management, Habits, Food, Diseases, Treatment, Breeding, and the Methods of Catching Them.
Bechstein, Johann Matthäus
Cage birds
I have never met with the nest; but it is said to be built on the ground
amongst fallen leaves, domed, with a side entrance, and lined with
feathers. The eggs are said to be from four to seven, white, with
reddish black dots, most crowded at the larger end.
The young branchers may be caught in autumn by means of the owl, with
limed twigs, and fed on ant's eggs and small meal-worms. They will also
soon take to bread and milk, or German paste, and become exceedingly
tame, but are very impatient of cold.
It is most probably a native of Britain, like the preceding; but is not
yet distinctly proved to be so.
THE HAY-BIRD, OR WILLOW WREN.
[Illustration]
Sylvia Fitis, BECHSTEIN; S. Trochilus, LATHAM; Le Bec-fin
Pouillot, TEMMINCK; Der Fitis Sanger, MEYER; Der Weidenblatt,
BECHSTEIN.
This species weighs about two drachms and three quarters; length five
inches and a quarter. The bill is dusky above, yellowish beneath; irides
hazel. The whole upper parts of the plumage are of a greenish yellow
brown: the under parts are white, tinged with yellow; on the breast are
a few yellow streaks; legs light brown.
This is a plentiful species in some parts; frequents wooded and enclosed
situations, especially where willows abound; is frequently found with
the wood wren, but does not extend so far to the west in England, as it
is rarely met with in Cornwall. It comes to us early in April, and soon
begins its usual song, which is short, with little variety. About the
latter end of the same month, or beginning of May, it makes a nest of an
oval shape, with a small opening near the top, composed of moss and
dried grass, and lined with feathers. This is placed in the hollow of a
ditch, or in a low bush close to the ground.
MR. SWEET'S ACCOUNT OF THE HAY-BIRD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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