BRITISH SONG BIEDS. 



afterwards steeped in milk, with barley or wheat meal, or a paste 

 made of hemp-seed, scalded and bruised, and white bread also 

 soaked ; these pastes should be mixed up fresh every morning, and 

 when given to the birds some fresh raw lean meat chopped fine, 

 should be added to them ; the yolk of an egg boiled hard and 

 crumbled into small pieces, is a very excellent variation to the general 

 food ; meal worms, ants' eggs, maggots of the bluebottle fly, &c. 

 are also exceedingly good, and most vegetables are eaten by these 

 birds with avidity. 



THE BULFIXCH. 



Pick-a-bud, as the gardeners call 

 this great destroyer of buds in spring, 

 especially the young bloom of green- 

 gages, is a beautifully- marked bird, 

 having a splendid red breast, a black 

 head, and a pleasant looking ash- 

 coloured back, which is varied by 

 the black of his wing feathers and 

 tail. He is very fond of singing 

 while hidden amid dark fir- trees or 

 thick impenetrable bushes, as if he liked to have it all to himself and 

 not to be disturbed, and in such spots as these the nest is generally 

 to be found, containing four or five eggs of a pale geenish white 

 colour, dashed with dark orange-brown spots at the larger end. In 

 a wild state the notes of the bulfinch are so low as only to be heard 

 when very near the spot from where the bird is stationed ; but there 

 is something very sweet and plaintive in its low melodious notes, 

 far more pleasant to our ears than that loud piping which they make 

 after having been caged and taught. Though very few Naturalists 

 agree with us in this opinion, they all admit that its notes are sweet 

 in a wild state, but can only be brought out to perfection by teaching 

 him to sing to the bird-organ. We contend that the notes are far 

 sweeter when he is left to himself, and that after he 'is taught they 

 are unnatural ; there is a low silvery ring about the natural song of 

 the bulfinch very pleasant to listen to in a room, but ten times 

 sweeter when heard from some shadowy copse, when the winds that 

 blow about you smell as if they had been out all clay gathering per- 

 fumes from the May-blossoms. 



The bulfinch possesses considerable powers of mimicry, learns to 

 whistle airs with great correctness, and touches them off in so plea- 

 sing a manner, and with so soft a note, that it is often on this 

 account one of the most highly- prized of cage birds. It may even 

 be taught to repeat a few syllables distinctly, but its memory must 

 not be taxed to remember too much. In Hesse and Fulda, in 

 Germany, vast numbers of these little mocking birds are taught to 

 whistle such airs as God save the Queen, the Hunter's chorus in Der 

 Freischutz, &c. ; they are principally brought over to England, 

 where very high prices are frequently paid for them, especially if 

 they are thoroughly accomplished. 



In England bulfinches are not very plentiful, through a species of 



