CANARY. — CardvUis can&rUi. 



^^•aved over the eyes of a Canary while it is lying on its back has the effect of depriving it 

 of all power, so that it will lie quite motionless untU taken up. The powder is then 

 shaken carefully out of the feathers, together with the dead and dying mites that may 

 have remained in the plumage, the bird restored to the cage, and the powder and mites 

 burned. 



As a few of these pests will escape observation in spite of all precautions, I wait until 

 night has fairly set in, and suddenly taking a very bright lamp into the cage where the 

 birds live, throw its light upon them, and cause the mites to leave the feathers and hurry 

 towards their hiding-places. As at that hour they are always distended with blood, they 

 are easily visible by the light of the lamp, and can at once be killed by being touched with 

 a little oil. Prevention, moreover, is better than cure, and as the mites are chiefly bred in 

 the so-called " nests" which are sold in the shops, no building substances shoiJd be given to 

 the birds without having been previously plunged into boiling water. By carefully taking 

 these precautions, the mites will be effectually destroyed in the course of a fortnight or so, 

 and the owner of the birds will find his reward in the recovered sprighthness of his 

 feathered pets, and their speed}- restoration to health. The best insect powder that I have 

 yet seen can be obtained at No. 33, Newgate-street, City, at the cost of tenpence per 

 packet. It is instantaneously effectual towards the insects, which it kiUs or paralyzes, and 

 does no harm to the birds even if it should get into their eyes or mouths. When rammed 

 into a paper tube and burned, it smoulders slowly away, and the smoke will destroy many 

 of the insect pests that infest our houses or injure our plants. In such cases the smoke 

 should be confined as much as possible by coverings of some sort, as its potency is of 

 course according to its concentration. 



The noisy, famihar, impatient Spaerow is one of those creatures that has attached 

 itself to man, and follows him wherever he goes. 



Nothing seems to daunt this bold little biid, which is equally at home in the fresh air 

 of the country farm, in the midst of a crowded cit}-, or among the strange sights and 

 sounds of a large railway-station ; treating with equal indifference the slow-paced waggon 



