12 Song Birds. 



are extremely dandified, which is always an advan- 

 tage, as it keeps them employed ; and they are not 

 generally very rapacious birds, though their habit 

 of pecking off buds, probably in the hope of an insect 

 inside, has apparently gained them a character of 

 being so. There are hardly any birds that may be made 

 more tame than these ; and the delight with which 

 they puff out their feathers, and sidle, and bow, 

 and stand up tall when spoken to, is something 

 charming, too amusing almost sometimes ; one wastes 

 so much time talking to them. 



13. Goldfinches, too, are great pets ; it may well 

 be said, " if they were foreign birds, how popular 

 they would be." To make them very tame, they 

 should be brought up from the nest by being fed 

 through a quill, or tended in a cage by the old birds, 

 till fledged, as I shall explain hereafter ; and this is 

 the best and happiest as well as the most certain plan, 

 as the birds cannot miss so much the liberty that 

 they have never known. Still birds taken in very 

 snowy weather often get so happy, and seem so 

 thoroughly at home, that in their cases, any idea 

 of cruelty in keeping them is removed entirely. 



14. In concluding this chapter, it may be as well 

 to say, that birds do not tame so quickly when 

 liable to be frightened: any sudden noises seem to 

 jar their nerves, and to render them more shy. It 

 is a very bad plan, therefore, to take all our friends 



