ecently been stated by certain medical men that egg-food in any
form is an undesirable diet for birds, owing to its being peculiarly
adapted to the multiplication of the bacillus of septicaemia, a disease
which is responsible for the death of many newly imported birds. It is a
significant fact, however, that insectivorous species, which are those
principally fed upon this substance, are not nearly so susceptible to this
disease as seed-eating birds which rarely taste egg; and in spite of what
has been written concerning its harmfulness, the large majority of
aviculturists use it, in both the fresh and the preserved state, with no
apparent ill effects, but rather the reverse.

[2] There is, however, one true nest-building parrot, the grey-breasted
parrakeet (_Myopsittacus monachus_), which constructs a huge nest of twigs.
The true love-birds (_Agapornis_) may also be said to build nests, for they
line their nest-hole with strips of pliant bark.

AVICENNA [Ab[=u] 'Al[=i] al-Husain ibn 'Abdall[=a]h ibn S[=i]n[=a]]
(980-1037), Arabian philosopher, was born at Afshena in the district of
Bokhara. His mother was a native of the place; his father, a Persian from
Balkh, filled the post of tax-collector in the neighbouring town of
Harmaitin, under N[=u]h II. ibn Mansur, the Samanid amir of Bokhara. On the
birth of Avicenna's younger brother the family migrated to Bokhara, then
one of the chief cities of the Moslem world, and famous for a culture which
was older than its conquest by the Saracens. Avicenna was put in charge of
a tutor, and his precocity soon made him the marvel of his neighbours,--as
a boy of ten who knew by rote the Koran and much Arabic poetry besides.
From a greengrocer he learnt arithmetic; and higher branches were begun
under one of those wandering scholars who gained a livelihood by cures for
the sick and lessons for the young. Under him Avicenna read the _Isagoge_
of Porphyry and the first propositions of Euclid. But the pupil soon found
his teacher to be but a charlatan, and betook himself, aided by
commentaries, to master logic, geometry and the Almagest. Before he was
sixteen he not merely knew medical theory, but by gratuitous attendance on
the sick had, according to his own account, discovered new methods of
treatment. For the next year and a half he worked at the higher philosophy,
in which he encountered greater obstacles. In such moments of baffled
inquiry he would leave his books, perform the requisi