102



Mr. W. E. Teschemaker,



German Aviculture in the 17th Century.


Although the writer has not been able to come across an

earlier German work on this subject than the one published in 1754,

the reader must not jump to the conclusion that German aviculture

began somewhere about this date. I have elsewhere made mention

of a much earlier English work. When I was offered this little book

one day in a secondhand book-shop in Charing Cross Road, for the

modest sum of 10s., I literally grabbed it. Its value to a collector is

more than the latter sum, and, to an aviculturist, it is simply beyond

price. Its title is (as usual!) lengthy : ‘The Bird-Fancyer’s Delight,

or Choice Observations and Directions concerning the Taking,

Feeding, Breeding, Curing and Teaching all sorts of Singing Birds.

Also, how to take birds with lime-twigs and to make water bird-lime.

With the Maladies and Distempers incident to Singing Birds, likewise

an Infallible Rule to know the cock from the hen ; and many other

observations relating thereto. The like not extant. London : printed

in the year 1711.” (Sixty-eight words ! but the title of Brehm's

‘ Vogel-fang ’ contains no less than 112 words !)


It consists for the most part of a series of essays on the

treatment of certain insectivorous song-birds, that on the Nightingale

being probably the most interesting and most detailed ever written

in any language.


Naturally, as an English aviculturist, I was very delighted to

find that at this early date aviculture in this country was so well

advanced, but, when I came in due course to the article on the

Canary, in the portion of the book devoted to “ Hard-beak’d Birds,”

I experienced a dreadful shock. Our countrymen of that date, I

read, could not “ distinguish a Canary from one of our common

Green-birds ” (Green-finches). But worse was to come. Whence

came the best Canaries? “The birds brought out of Germany far

excel in hansomness and songs ; the German birds have many fine

jerks and notes of the Nightingals, which in its place I shall declare

how they came to have.” The author goes on to describe a German

aviary, and German methods of breeding and training the young

birds to sing Nightingale and Pipit tours, and he concludes with this

overwhelming sentence : “ This man also did truly affirm that they ”



