8 



CANARIES, HYBRIDS, AND BRITISH BIRDS 



We say " apparent " trifles, ior the siuall- 

 est work of creative power cannot really be 

 considered a trifle, nor are lliey trillers who 

 jfive a careful attention to fhe many secm- 

 inff insijinifieant works of nature with whicli 

 they are surrounded. He is not a trifler who 

 makes tlie " short lived insect of a day " 

 a life-long study, nor he who can find 

 food for thought in contemplation of the 

 lowest form of animal organism ; any more 

 than he who makes the study of the higher 

 works of creation his constant occupation. 

 Nor is he a trifler who can read a page of 

 the world's history in a fragment of rock 

 which, crop|:)ing up by the roadside, S])eaks 

 to him with a tongue that cannot lie of 

 that distant beginning when this jilanet 

 of oiu-s was created ; any more than he 

 who extracts from the fjowels of the earth 

 the treasures warehoused there for ages. 

 Nor is he a trifler who carefully gathers the 

 wild flowers in the hedgerow or the grasses 

 of our fields, or notes forms of vegetable 

 existence where the uneducated eye can 

 detect nothing ; any more than he who 

 cultivates broad acres, or who brings the 

 flowers and fruits of the tropics under 

 control in our latitudes. Neither is he a 

 trifler who, from among the endless re- 

 sources at the connnand of any thinker wlio 

 goes through the world witli his eyes open, 

 selects for his special study the feathered 



portion of creation ; nor when, among 

 otiier marvels of instinctive work, he finds 

 his attention arrested by a simple httle 

 bird's nest is he any more a trifler than the 

 men whose constructive genius designed 

 the temples of old Egypt, wlio l)uilt the 

 hoary Pyramids, who carved the solid 

 mountains of the Nile into edifices of 

 colossal proportions, or those who raised, 

 brick by brick from their foundations, the 

 more florid but less imj)osing structures of 

 modern times. There is a time for every- 

 tliing, even for trifles, if such there be. 

 Our trifle is the cage-birtl of to-day — the 

 fancier's Canary, hybrid, or British bird — 

 and when we take into consideration the 

 wonderful strides and improvements that 

 have been made even within tlie past 

 twenty years, there is nuich for us to 

 advance for the consideration of the pres- 

 ent-day fancier. We propose to deal 

 with eacli l)ird by describing minutely 

 its distinctive features, showing how 

 to keep it, feed it, moult it, develop 

 its beauties, improve its shape and 

 feather, wash it, dry it, send it to the 

 show ; how to get it t here, what to do 

 with it when, it is there, and how- to 

 get it home again ; how to aehiev'C suc- 

 cess, how to ])rofit by defeat : as well 

 as how to hel]) each other, and so help 

 ourselves. 



