OUR PETS. 143 



be gentle. There are individual exceptions in every species, 

 but there are few, either among quadrupeds or birds, that 

 will not soon get attached to the person who feeds them ; 

 bat they are frequently far more strongly attached to the 

 individual who understands them, and keeps up a quiet 

 friendly intercourse with them. Unless this sort of " rap- 

 port " is established between us and our pets, they are (to 

 my mind) hardly worthy of the name ; they degenerate into 

 " captive animals," and can neither give pleasure to others, 

 nor be made happy themselves. 



The surest way of having cage birds tame, is to rear 

 them from the nest ; but, in most cases, this is troublesome, 

 and it is painful to see the little things droop and die after 

 a few days of their strange training. I have, however, 

 brought up many a one, feeding them chiefly on oatmeal 

 and water : green linnets and chaffinches used always to 

 thrive, the only care being to keep them Avarm, and feed 

 them frequently, giving very little at a time, and beginning 

 to feed early in the morning. One sunmier I was very 

 desirous to rear the common wren from the nest, but I 

 never could keep the young ones alive after the third 

 morning, though they fed readily, and were easily kept 

 warm in a flannel bag lined ydih feathers. I tried dif- 

 ferent kinds of food, once giving nothing but small green 

 caterpillars, but the result was always the same — the eye 

 lost its round shape, and death followed. I tried the ex- 

 periment four times, and I remember being very sanguine 

 about the last birds I tried. They were just ready to fly 

 when I took them out of the nest, and lived for four days, 



