IQ4 The Canary Book. 



place a lettuce leaf upon your shoulder, and after it becomes 

 bold enough to eat it there, coax it to eat out of your hand, or 

 from between your fingers, and thus by patience, perseverance, 

 and kindness, you will ultimately succeed in getting it to do a 

 variety of feats both pleasing and entertaining to you. 



CLEANING SEED. Nothing is calculated to preserve birds in 

 health more than the constant use of good and wholesome 

 food. It is desirable, therefore, where a few birds are kept, to 

 procure a small fine hair sieve to sift the dust out of the seed 

 once a week or fortnight. Where only a single bird is kept it 

 is not worth while to incur the expense, but the seed drawer 

 should be emptied on to a piece of paper or a dish, and the dirt 

 picked out and the dust blown away. 



KEEPING BIRDS IN A ROOM WHERE A FIRE AND GAS 

 ARE FREQUENT IN USE. Most people who keep birds to 

 sing, have them in the room they ordinarily use, and where a 

 fire is almost constantly kept, and the gas often lighted neither 

 of which is desirable, for both are calculated to have a pre- 

 judicial effect upon their health, especially gas, which invari- 

 ably sets them to moult out of season, and thereby jeopardises 

 their lives, more particularly when they are hung in a lofty 

 situation or from the ceiling, as the intense heat which is 

 generated and accumulated there is most hurtful to them. 

 To avoid this I would recommend the use of plate pulleys- 

 little brass pulleys afiixed to plates ; fasten one of these to the 

 moulding above the window (about the centre), and the other to 

 the architrave on either side of it, whichever is most conve- 

 nient both pulleys must be in a line with each other. Get a 

 piece of blind or picture cord about 10ft. in length, and secure 

 it to the top of the cage by a ring or hook made of wire, and 

 pass it through these pulleys. It will be necessary also to 

 obtain a plated double hook (i.e., two hooks affixed to a brass plate, 

 such as are used for Yenetian blinds) ; this should be fixed to 

 the architrave on the same side as the pulley, and about 3ft. 

 from the ground, so that the cage can be lowered or raised at 

 pleasure; at night, after the gas has been lighted, the cage 

 containing the bird should be lowered to within 4ft. of the 



