The Aviary.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1056, 26 May 1892, Page 14

The Aviary.

DISEASES OF CAGE BIRDS. A book of great interest to keepers of cage birds lias just been published m England. It is entitled ‘ Diseases of Cage Birds, arid it is from the pen of Dr. T. W. Gre?no, a recognioed English authority. _ We make the following quotation on the all important subject of feather eating. This is a troublesome and not very infrequent complaint, to which many captive birds are subject. Parrots are, perhaps, the chief offenders in this respect, but fancy poultry frequently do it; and some of the small waxbills are incorrigible devourers of their companions’ plumage, tho beautiful little cinerous waxbill, commonly) but erroneously, called the lavender finch, being about the worst of them in this respect. But I have never known any bird, save a parrot, to mutilate itself.

In the case of birds that strip their fellowcaptives, there is no doubt they are often prompted to do so by a craving for animal food—as evinced by their eagerly sucking the quills of abstracted feathers ; or by a desire to utilise them in the construction of nests for themsolves. But it is difficult to understand whv parrots, which in their wild state are chiefly graminivorous, should take to eating their own feathers. I have seen some of these birds stripped of every plume, and ever particle of down even, that they could reach, except tho large quills o f the wings and tail, which last, however, do not escape, and the spectacle presented by their naked bodies and fully-feathered heads was ludicrous in the extreme, reminding one of the plucked fowl that vtas vudely thrown into the lectureV... 11 r. f mm of the most celebrated of the old

Greek philosophers, by a rival professor, with the contemptuous exclamation, ‘ There is Plato’s man for you, gentlemen ! that learned disciple of Socrates having defined the genus homo as ‘ a two-legged animal without feathers.’ Symptoms. —The offender is usually caught red-handed, flagrante delicto. Treatment. —In cases where birds continue persistently bare, tbe amateur should watch, and if he should discover one of the inmates of the aviary in the act of despoiling a companion of its natural covering, he must at once remove the culprit, and consign it to rigorous solitary confinement until such time as the naked are clothed again, when the offender will, probably, have forgotten his or her malpractices, and the birds will all live together in peace for ever after, as the storybooks say. Sometimes intense affection seems to be the exciting cause (and this reminds one irresistibly of the amorous swain who declared to his friend that his bride of a week was so nice he could eat her! but six months after confessed that he was sorry lie had not done so !), for occasionally the male, bub more frequently the female, will so assiduously plume the head of its companion, that, little by little, as lawyers are said to wain the realms of bliss, the recipient of so much devotion will be as bald as a coot, and the amateur, if he wish to pressrve his specimens in perfect plumage, will have to constitute himself judge and jury in ons, and pronounce a decree nisi on the spot. So far the treatment for feather eating is airnvfifl Anoiich : but when one lias to do with

a parrot that has fallen into the deplorable habit of plucking out and sucking its own feathers, there is, perhaps, nothing more difficult than to effect a cure. I consider these cases as analogous to those of that Protean complaint, hysteria, 60 frequently met with in the human subject, and look upon it as mostly engendered by ennui and idleness. The remedy would, prima fae'e, appear to be society and occupation ; but not onl* i a this not always successful, but ocoasionly it proves to be worse than the disease, for I have known of cases where the self mutilator, instead of giving up his bad habits on being introduced into 'the society of one or more of his conveners, actually corrupted theso previously innocent creatures, and male them as bad as himself; while nearly all tho birds I have seen that were afflicted with this complaint obstinately refused to be amused or occupied. Some I have cured by turning them adrift in an outdoor aviary, where there was an abundance of branches of trees and logs of wood, upon which they could exercise their beaks, and so forget to pluck their feathers, and their convalescence was complete ; but 1 have failed with others under precisely similar circumstances, especially with two Adelaide pnrrakeets that ultimately died of cold from the self-inflicted loss of their feathers, wlucli nothing could persuade them to let alone. Tin collars have been recommended, but

have not, I fancy, proved a success. At all events, they failed utterly in several cases coming within my knowledge, where they had been worn for months. lhey are, besides, difficult to apply, and very terrifying to the patient. Bathing with wine, or a decoction of aloes or quassia, has also been advised, but without much result; while the practice of giving hones to pick, from which as much meat as possible had been removed, though said in some bad cases to have brought about a cure, has, to my knowledge, induced the disease in other birds that had been previously free from it. On the whole, the plan that appears to me ' to offer the best chances for success is to turn the feather eater loose in an outdoor aviary, or an empty room, in which there is an abundance of objects upon which it can

gratify its natural taste for gnawing ana cutting things to pieces—and the former is much the better situation of the two. Ui course, attention must bo paid to the diet, which—while nourishing—must not be too stimulating, and should not include (in my opinion) animal food in any form—that is to say, neither meat, butter, eggs, nor mi , but, on the contrary, should consist of good sound hemp and canary seed, maize, oats, dari, buckwheat, fruit, green food (such as lettuce, green peas and cabbage), a bit ot sugar now and then, but no salt, and (above

all) a log of half rotten soft wood; for nearly all the parirots eat wooiy fibre, and some of them m ke it almost their exclusive diet -v when wild. Parasites are an evil that require to be guarded against, as they affect the general health of birds. Tho creatures from which they suffer, the bird lice, are a BDecies of acarus, and the mode of dealing with them is thus described by Dr. Greene: —‘ An attentive examination cf the cage with a lens; or even the naked eye, will reveal a number of minute white or greyish spots round the joints of the woodwork, whiehare theexcretaof the parasites. When these have been detected the bird or birds must be taken out of tho cage, which must be scalded with boiling water and then dried before the fire; or it may if small enough be baked in the oven care being taken not to leave it in long enough to char the wood, but yet a sufficient time to kill all tho parasites and destroy their eggs. As a further precaution, the crevices should be painted with fir-tree oil, and the birds themselves well dusted with pyrethrum powder. Aa some of the insects may escape after all—for they are possessed of wonderful vitality—a second examination had better be made in a few days, and a white handkerchief or cloth be thrown over the cage at night ; the bugs will stick to this if any are present. The operation should be repeated until no more are to be found.