110 The Canary. 



their bedroom, or rocking-chair to lull them to sleep. 

 No, the furnishing of their house was a much more 

 simple and inexpensive a matter. A little moss from 

 some old forest tree, a little hair from the cow with the 

 crumpled horn, and a little raw cotton given me by a 

 kind friend, notwithstanding half the mills in Man- 

 chester were either on the point of stopping or of 

 putting their hands on short time, through lack of 

 sufficient material to carry on their business, owing to 

 the mortal strife then going on between the Northern 

 and Southern States of America, was all that we 

 required. Having first thoroughly cleaned the moss, 

 and scalded the hair with boiling water, for the purpose 

 of killing all vermin that might be therein, we dried it 

 again before the fire, and then with a further addition 

 of cotton, put the whole in little string nets made for 

 the purpose, which we hung outside the wires of the 

 aviary, that the birds might not pull it. all in pieces by 

 way of amusement, as otherwise they would be very 

 likely to do. The moss made a very good mattress, 

 the hair answered the purpose of a good feather bed, 

 whilst the cotton supplied the place of a pair of the 

 warmest witney blankets or eider-down quilt, shutting 

 out all cold, and making altogether a couch such as the 

 most luxurious lady of the land might envy and desire. 

 Unlike the English finches, to wit, the goldfinch, 

 chaffinch, and linnet, the canary finch is but a rough 

 and clumsy builder, caring comparatively little for the 

 external neatness of its nest, though the interior is laid 

 in and finished with considerable care and attention to 

 its appearance. Still, of its performance, no less than of 



