Variety in their food is necessary for all birds; and if they have this, and the seed is good and sound, and they are not exposed to draughts or sudden changes of temperature, they will rarely have anything amiss with them which a warm bath will not cure. Whenever my birds look moping, or when the hen is "egg-bound," and cannot lay her eggs, I give them a bath at 960, holding the bird in my hand while immersing all but the head in the water for three or four minutes, then taking it out and drying the feet, I put it in the sunshine, or at a little distance from a fire to get dry. Sometimes, if a bird is not fond of bathing, the feet will get clogged, especially during nesting, when the claws get a bit of hair or cotton twisted around them occasionally, and the feet should be cleansed in warm water, and gently freed from their troublesome encumbrance.

An old bird's claws will sometimes grow too long, so that it cannot perch comfortably, and they must be very carefully cut, taking care not to draw blood, or to injure the bird in any way. Whenever possible, it is best to avoid catching the birds, especially if they are wild and fly about in alarm; but if taught to consider their owner as their friend, they will generally submit, without much fluttering, to be taken hold of; and illness generally tames them sufficiently to make them quiet when they require to be taken out of the cage to be put into a bath.

Early in spring, when the cock birds begin to fight, the hens should be taken away, and kept apart in another cage till the pairs are put together in March. Some people allow their birds to choose their own mates; but a great deal of quarrelling takes place before this, and two or three gentlemen will sometimes fix their affections on the same lady, and they will get injured in the combats that ensue; besides which, if it be .an object to secure good coloured birds, it is necessary to put those together whose colours contrast well: a mealy cock with a jonque hen, or a green bird with a yellow partner. Handsomer birds are obtained by these selections than when two birds of the same colour are paired; and two crested birds should never be put together, the young will probably be bald-headed. It is best to give an old wife to a young cock, and vice versa; and the birds of a family should never be mated together: the progeny will infallibly be weak and unhealthy if this is permitted. Two of my birds were accidentally paired, a brother and sister, and the result was that one of their children was blind, and another deformed. For these reasons it is best not to leave the birds to choose for themselves, but to separate them before any attachment springs up among them.

Cages sold as " breeding cages " have a wooden compartment at the top of one end for nest-boxes, and a wired-off partition underneath, into which the young birds may be put when it is desirable to separate them from their parents. There are some advantages in these cages, and the birds which are shy and like retirement prefer them to the open cages; the only objection to them is that they are inconveniently small when a large family is hatched, and that the nest-boxes are necessarily so high that the young birds sometimes fall, when they come out of the nest before they are fully fledged, and are injured thus. On this account I put nest-baskets into my cages, at a little distance from the floor, so that the young birds hop in and out easily; and if the old birds should entangle their feet in the nest (which they sometimes do if the claws are long and they fly out in a hurry), and the young birds are thrown out of it, they are not likely to be so much hurt as if they fell from the greater height. My breeding cages have compartments for the separate pairs, three in each, the centre space being kept for the young birds of each family, that they may be fed through the wires by the old birds, when they have left the nest, but cannot feed themselves.

This space is necessary, too, to prevent quarrels, as the birds on each side of the wire partition will sometimes try to fight, and make furious assaults on their neighbours through the bars, or jealousies will arise to break their domestic peace, if, while the hen is sitting, her husband chooses to feed his neighbour's wife through the wires. The pairs should be kept as retired and out of sight of each other as possible. The materials for the nest should be hung up in the cage in a little net; fine moss and cow-hair are best; if cotton wadding is given it is apt to get matted and clogged round the bird's claws. The hen will generally make the nest herself; but some birds are idle about it, and do not take the trouble to do more than to put a little moss or wool into the basket, and then it is as well to make a nest for her; but il is not at all certain that she will allow it to remain in the basket. Some birds seem to prefer sitting on their eggs without a nest, or are very-capricious about its formation, and will undo one day the work of the previous day. It is as well to leave them to their own devices till the young are hatched, and then they may have a little moss or cow-hair put in under them to make their bed softer.