262 



the sexual instinct on the part of birds, when thus 

 liberally provided for at special seasons of the year, 

 cannot seriously be regarded by any one who ap- 

 proaches the subject in the capacity of either physician 

 or student of natural science as intended by Nature to 

 involve a penal limitation ; it would therefore seem 

 that so far from solitary confinement being an improve- 

 ment upon natural laws and being a factor that makes 

 for health, it is at the very best but an element of 

 neutral influence in either the case of a pure bred bird 

 or even in that of a hybrid — in whom be it borne in 

 mind, both the instinct and the power for sexual 

 congress are equally strong with those of his pure 

 bred relatives. 



Just as BufFon's Canaries and mules kept for sing- 

 ing only, lived long,-'' not because the}^ were deprived 

 of female societj^ but because they were not fed on the 

 inevitable egg that even then was alwaj's placed 

 alongside the breeding hen, so our Canary hybrid owes 

 his extra span of life when kept merely as a house 

 companion, not to the fact that he is probably in- 

 capable of procreation, but to the fact that like them 

 he too is not treated to egg. That he does live long 

 under such conditions is a fact which can easily be 

 verified by mj^ medical readers, or indeed by any whose 

 routine work leads them daily into many houses. 

 Such observers will constantly come across solitary 

 songsters — both Canaries and other finches and their 

 hybrids — in the houses of people who happily know 

 nothing of the arbitrary laws laid down by the experts 

 as to their feeding. On enquiry they will invariably 



* Mais il y a une observation coiistante qui porte sur les uiis et sur les 

 autres, c'est que, plus ils Iravailleut a. la propagation et plus lis abregeut 

 leur vie. Un serin male eleve seul et sans connnunication avec inie femelle 

 vivra cominunenient treize ou quatorze ans ; un metis provenant du 

 chardonneret, traite de nicme, vit dix-huit et meme dix-neuf ans. Un metis 

 provenant du tarin, et egalement prive de femelles, vivra quinze ou seize 

 aus. Buffon, //jj/. A'af. des Otseatix, Tome ^7)ie. 



