16 PIPING BULLFINCHES. 



made a good livelihood by selling the best at five 

 shillings a^piece. Since then, the trade has, we 

 have reason to believe, still further increased. 



Though not very hardy, Canaries might possibly be 

 naturalized in our country, by putting their eggs in 

 the nests of Sparrows, Chaffinches, or other similar 

 birds. The experiment has been partially tried in 

 Berkshire, where a person for years kept them in an 

 exposed aviary out of doors, where they seemed to 

 surfer no inconvenience from the severest weather. 



But this singing-bird trade is not confined alto- 

 gether to Canary birds; Piping Bullfinches, so 

 called from being taught to pipe different tunes, 

 forming a considerable branch of it. In the month 

 of June, the young ones, which are sought for in the 

 nests of wild birds, are taken when about ten days 

 old, and brought up by a person, who, by care and 

 attention, so completely tames them, that they become 

 perfectly docile and obedient. At the expiration of 

 about a couple of months, they first begin to whistle, 

 from which time their education begins; and no 

 school can be more diligently superintended by its 

 master, and no scholars more effectually trained to 

 their own calling, than a seminary of Bullfinches. 

 They are formed first into classes of about six in each, 

 and after having been kept a longer time than 

 usual without food, and confined in a dark room, 

 the tune they are to learn is played over and over 

 again on a little instrument called a bird- organ, the 

 notes of which resemble as nearly as possible those 

 of the Bullfinch. For a time, perhaps, the moping 

 birds will sit in silence, not knowing what to make 

 of these proceedings, but after a while they will one 



