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As they had not read Bechstein, or any other author on bird-keeping, and thousands of the birds must have been total strangers to them, how did they know what diet to supply them with, and where could they get it, supposing they had time to supply them at all?
The first work a boy does is to go out with a clapper, or his own strong voice, to scare birds from the corn all day; this we call bird-keeping, but the lads themselves, with an appreciation of the other side of the case, call it bird-starving. Forage is often used in a general sense of food, or in the more particular sense of green food, as clover, or vetches.
Mother said she had been forced into the trade from the necessity of her having to do `something for a living' after grandfather's death, on account of her having us two children to keep, as well as herself, on only the allotment pay of father, who was away at sea at the time; but, in a weak moment she once confessed she had started the bird-keeping business more for the sake of having her hands employed than anything else, she not being partial to needlework, like most west-country women, while she was particularly fond of birds!
Those who work in the fields, again, have still better opportunities: the bird-keeping lads too have little else to do at that season than watch for nests. In the meadows the labourer as he walks to and fro with the 'bush' passes over every inch of the ground.
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