THE BULLFINCH. 59 



In a wild state they hatch twice a year ; and they may be lived in confinement as 

 easily as a pair of Canaries, and require the same care and treatment when mated. 

 The female Bullfinch, and a good breeding male Canary, will mate easily ; and, 

 although the offspring are not very attractive in appearance, they are fine singers. 



The male Bullfinch, if mated with a female Goldfinch, produces beautifully colored 

 birds ; but they are so rarely found, that it would pay a bird-breeder to devote atten- 

 tion to this branch of breeding. If one wishes to obtain the proper Bullfinches for 

 instruction, it is better to procure the home-made article; i.e., buy a male and 

 female Bullfinch, and mate and breed them at home. When the young birds are 

 hatched, remove them from the nest, and bring them up by hand, and follow the 

 German instructor's method given farther along in this article. 



Both male and female have the same natural notes, which are a succession of 

 soft, low call-notes, intermixed with harsher notes, which resemble the squeaks of 

 an uuoiled door-hinge. For this reason the Bullfinch, if taken for training purposes, 

 should be removed from the old birds at an early age ; so that he will acquire none 

 of the harshness which is so apt to spoil his artificial training. The female Bullfinch 

 is as capable of being taught a course of music as the male ; and, although she is 

 rarely given a thorough education, it is by no means infrequent to see her industri- 

 ously educating herself from her better-taught brother ; and, when this occurs, the 

 self-made musician is a thorough scholar. 



The following is a description of the methods by which the trained Bullfinches 

 are bought and taught. They are usually trained in Hesse, Germany : 



The journey from Hanover, Germany, to Cassel, in summer, is delightful ; as the 

 many European tourists who have enjoyed it can testify. From Cassel we go to Bebra, 

 thence to Fulda : there we leave the cars for a jaunt of eight hours in a post-coach, so 

 called, but which really is a hay-cart. With aching bones, and apparently paralyzed 

 limbs, we try to alight, and succeed in tumbling to the ground ; this is Angersbach : 

 near by are an unlimited number of dorfs, or very small villages ; chief among 

 them are Lauterbach and Storndorf , distant from one another a walk of two and a 

 half hours. The trip made in winter, as it must necessarily be when buying piping 

 Bullfinches, is a severe one ; for the region is very desolate, the snow deep, and 

 accommodations at the inns not exactly the same as at our New- York Windsor. 

 The bill of fare at the inns has the first page covered with print, but the most exact 

 translation reveals only the name of the house and its proprietor ; the second 

 page informed us there were bread and beer and cheese ; the third page was some- 

 what like the second, cheese and beer and bread ; the fourth page, ah ! here we 

 shall find the names of refreshing viands ; but close inspection and a "Baedeker" 

 stated beer and cheese and bread, " bitter bread mit der Carryaway seeds in it." 

 Would that the "Carryaway" were true. The meal proved to be a strong one, 

 and the appetite was more than satisfied. A little Limburger cheese goes a great 

 ways, if not farther. But let us turn to a more pleasing subject. 



The Bullfinch is taken from the nest in the early spring, when fourteen days old. 

 and thoroughly tamed before being given his elementary lessons in whistling. By 

 regularly feeding from the hand, he becomes very tame, and strongly attached to 

 his master, whom he soon begins to regard as a substitute for his mother. When 

 taken from the nest, he is allowed his liberty for two or three days in order to ac- 



