106 The Canary, 



CHAPTER XV. 



NEST-BOXES AND NESTS. 



IRVING paired all our birds, and returned them 

 to the aviary, the next thing that became 

 necessary was to provide them with the means 

 of making their nest. When wild the canary, as we 

 have already stated, loves to build its nest in the 

 branches of the orange-tree on the banks of some silver 

 stream, where the perfume of the flowers seems most 

 grateful to its taste. To gratify this very natural pro- 

 pensity of their nature was wholly out of our power, we 

 having neither orange-trees nor greenhouse to offer 

 them. Use, however, we knew was second nature, and 

 therefore as the latter is proverbially accommodating to 

 the circumstances in which it finds itself, we did not 

 despair of inducing our feathered friends to put up 

 with a much more humble and unroraantic situation. 

 Their locality was fixed, and from that there was no 

 escape. If it could not be said to be quite so poetical 

 as the banks of a stream, or the perfumed orangery of 

 a greenhouse, still it was light, cheerful, airy, and 

 above all of even temperature, and altogether free from 

 cold and chilling draughts, points specially to be 

 attended to in the breeding and keeping of the canary. 

 Nothing is more injurious to their health than great 



