THE CANARY BIRD. 35 



water, to take away the acidity. Some use crackers instead of 

 bread, but this is unnecessary. It is merely requisite to see 

 that this soft food does not become sour, otherwise it will kill 

 the young, and the cause remain unsuspected. Some persons 

 merely give them their usual food, intermixing it with some 

 finely-powdered crackers and hard-boiled eggs, but it has been 

 found by experience, that the diet prescribed above is more 

 efficacious, especially until the young are fledged. 



It is now that the male takes the chief part in rearing the 

 young; and upon him devolves the duty of feeding them, in 

 order to allow the female to recover from the exhaustion she 

 has received from incubation. 



If it is necessary to feed the young by hand, grated roll or 

 pulverised dry crackers is taken, mixed with pounded rape 

 seed, and kept in a box. As often as it is necessary to feed 

 them, a little of it is moistened with some of the yolk of an 

 egg and water, and given to them from a quill pen. This 

 must be done ten or twelve times a-day ; about four penfuls is 

 the quantity necessary for each meal. 



Up to the twelfth day, the young remain almost naked, and 

 require to be covered by the female ; but after the thirteenth, 

 they will feed themselves. In cold, dry years, however, it 

 sometimes happens that the birds get scarcely any plumage at 

 all. When they are a month old, they may be removed from 

 the breeding cage. With the usual food of the old birds, they 

 must be fed for some time upon the kinds above named ; for, 

 the sudden removal from soft food often occasions death, espe- 

 cially in moulting. It is asserted, and not without reason, that 

 those Canaries which are reared in an arbor, where they have 

 space to iiy about within an enclosure of wire, are longer-lived 

 and stronger than those which are reared in a chamber or a 

 confined cage. 



It is a curious fact, perhaps not known to every one, that, when 



there are two females with one male in a cage, and one dies, 



■ the other, if she has not already sat, will hatch the eggs laid by 



I her co-mate, and rear the young as her own; and, during this 



1 foster-mother care, cautiously avoid the caresses of the male ! 



S!:.Et>— ■ m 



