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EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



MY BIRD— THE SISKIN. 



Othee people are allowed to vaunt the 

 merits of their favourites, and therefore I 

 •will take the liberty of saying a word in 

 favour of mine. 



Of all the small cage-birds I have ever 

 kept, which has proved the most pleasing 

 and attractive to me and mine ? 



Not the canary ; he is too loud and shrill, 

 and insists on taking the lead in every con- 

 versation, which is a breach of good manners. 

 Not the chaffinch ; too wild and monotonous. 

 Not the bullfinch ; too melancholy, and rather 

 given to sulking. Not the goldfinch ; pretty, 

 but egotistical, requiring to be made a spoiled 

 bird of, to show itself to the best advantage, 

 and needing severe discipline to urge it to 

 exert its intellectiial faculties. The linnet, 

 when really tame, is an engaging and modest 

 bird — so modest, in fact, as to make you 

 doubt of its abilities. The pretty little tits 

 are carnivorous furies, cannibals who will 

 feast on a fellow-prisoner. The nightingale, 

 like other great singers, is apt to give himself 

 airs, and is also troublesomely particular in 

 respect to his diet. The same remark is 

 more or less applicable to all the soft-billed 

 insectivorous songsters. To keep a robin in 

 a cage permanently is out of the question. 

 A caged skylark gives me little pleasure. 

 "With the blackbird and the thrush, both 

 sweet minstrels of the grove, we have taken 

 leave of small cage-birds, and are half-way 

 on the road which leads to large ones. An 

 ornithological rule-of-three would give, "As 

 the canary is to the blackbird (in point of 

 size), so is the thrush to the magpie or the 

 jay. Size also is an objection to the green- 

 finch, and to the hawfinch especially ; both 

 of them caged suggest the idea of small fowl 

 put up to fatten ; they make us think more 

 of roast meat than of music. The brambling, 

 handsome and tameable, is long-legged and 



far from eloquent. The buntings are, for the 

 most part, either stupid like the ortolan, or 

 savagely wild like the snow-bunting. The 

 cardinal grossbeak, or Yirginian nightingale, 

 is shy, vulgar-toned, and loud. Tlie Paddy- 

 bird, though tame and handsome, is as weari- 

 some as the chaffinch, with his everlasting 

 and unvarying chant. Little avidavats, wax- 

 bills, etc., are simply good to bring sorrow 

 to their keeper ; they breathe the air of our 

 northern winter, and they die. But, in ex- 

 planation, be it understood that the above- 

 named birds are not meant to be sweepingly 

 and universally condemned, nor to be ex- 

 communicated from civilized aviaries. A 

 kind and attentive master or mistress will 

 develop their native merits and subdue their 

 natural defects, to a certain extent, that is 

 to say, and with individuals superior to the 

 common run ; for amongst birds, as in the 

 human race, the capacity and the temper of 

 individuals vary greatly. Every one to his 

 taste, therefore. My taste is the siskin, or 

 aberdevine, the Fringilla spinus of ornitho- 

 logists (perhaps because its long sharj) beak 

 resembles a thorn, or spinus), the zeisig of 

 Grerman fanciers, and the tarin or therin of 

 the French. 



The siskin, while exempt from the faults 

 of most other cage-birds, unites in itself 

 many of their merits. Its small size (less 

 than that of the canary) heightens its prctti- 

 ness. The character of its plumage may be 

 briefly expressed by the adjective "neat." 

 In the male, shades of yellow, greenish-gray, 

 and black are harmoniously blended and con- 

 trasted ; the female, w^ho wears the same 

 hues, is decorated with marked stripes of 

 black on the lower part of her person. Its 

 song, instead of a head-splitting din, is a 

 soft, gentle warble, which may be heard 

 within-doors without pain. True, the cha- 



