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to me as the best Indigo the dealer had ever seen, and it 

 certainly was a magnificent creature. There it sat, in 

 that wretched little canary cage, which was horribly 

 dirty, glistening with color and looking more like a 

 carved figure than a living bird. For nearly twelve 

 months it had been there, and all the time had had 

 nothing but canai-y seed and water ! 



As I have said before, I have good reasons to believe 

 what was told me, otherwise it would have been almost 

 impossible to credit it. Well, I bought the bird and kept 

 it right through the summer in a separate cage, still 

 adhering to the canar}^ seed. It retained its beauty and 

 tameness till its moult, after which I turned the bird into 

 a large cage containing several others of various species. 

 Here it had access to half-a-dozen different seeds and 

 insectivorous food — but within a couple of months it 

 was dead. It did not appear well one evening, and the 

 next morning all that remained of- it lay on the floor of 

 the cage. 



The mice had practically eaten the body, the skull 

 being dragged some distance away. I was afraid they 

 might have killed the bird, or even parth' eaten it 

 before it died, but the late Mr. Abrahams assured me that 

 mice never touch a living bird, asmall crumb of comfort, 

 for which I was sincerely grateful. It was a melancholv 

 end, and I took a fierce delight in exterminating that 

 brood of vermin. 



Some writers say that if Indigos are kept with 

 Nonpareils, the latter will worry the Indigo '' to its no 

 small annoyance." I have never found it so— indeed my 

 specimens always seemed to agree very well, each 

 perhaps recognising in the other an inhabitant of the 

 land of its birth. The same authorit}- also sa.\s that an 

 Indigo Bunting will chase a hen Canary if in the same 

 cage from morning till night. Well, my birds were not so 

 ungallant as that, for I never once saw an Indigo 

 molest a hen Canary, These instances only show how 

 individual birds may differ in character. It is hard to 

 condemn a whole family through the ill-behaviour of 



