184 The Canary Book. 



writing; but if a bird were famed by a name or title, the record 

 of that name and that of its owner would be all that would be 

 needful to bring it vividly before the recollection of those men 

 who are learned in " birdology," for they alone can properly 

 appreciate the value of a strain of birds that have repeatedly won 

 honours. "We should then have the satisfaction of being able to 

 trace any bird of renown and distinction after this manner- 

 Brown's Warrior, Smith's Conqueror, Jones's Beauty, and so 

 on ; and these appellations, or similar ones, would in a short 

 time become just as f amilar to our ears as are those of Fletcher's 

 Rattler and Pickett's Tyneside, and other celebrities in the dog 

 world. 



MICE OB BATS IN BIRD BOOMS. One of the greatest 

 annoyances that a bird fancier has to encounter is when any 

 of these pests make an inroad into his aviary or bird room, 

 for they are not only mischievous and troublesome, but even 

 dangerous and destructive, and when once they get a firm 

 footing in any place they are most difficult to dislodge. 



"Whenever you discover the presence of mice among your 

 birds, you must not neglect to examine the whole of the seed- 

 hoppers and feeding troughs attached to those cages which 

 contain birds every morning, for I have known numerous 

 instances where mice have literally devoured every grain of 

 seed in a hopper or feeding drawer of a cage in a single night, 

 and the occupants of the cage were left without a morsel of food. 

 Some fanciers do not feed their birds more than twice or thrice 

 at most weekly during the winter months of the year, therefore 

 if an occurrence like the one I have just related should take 

 place, the birds would inevitably perish. I have known valuable 

 specimens meet with an untimely death from this cause, and the 

 owner (a novice of course) wonders what was the matter with 

 them, for the cunning little animals knowingly leave all tha 

 husks behind, and this tends to deceive the inexperienced and 

 unwary. 



As soon as it has become evident that the precincts of your 

 "sanctum" are infested with mice or rats, a strict scrutiny 

 should be immediately instituted, and their runs found out and 

 traced to their source. Bats are more easily got rid of than 



