40 Canaries and Cage-Birds. 



behind in the race for life. In the early stage of their existence they are white, but when they 

 reach maturity they become of a bright red colour, and develop into most active little insects. If 

 the cages be examined by candle-light, they will be observed running over the birds in great 

 numbers with extraordinary speed, disappearing beneath the feathers in a twinkling ; and it is 

 only reasonable to infer that their red colour is caused by their being inflated with the blood of 

 the birds on which they are supposed to feed. They are essentially nocturnal animals, and only 

 display this lightning-like agility when running about on the feathers of the birds ; for if a nest 

 of them be disturbed during the day, they certainly do run off in all directions, but only in a 

 comparatively sluggish way, and are easily killed. It will be admitted that these insects are most 

 undesirable tenants for a breeding-cage ; though while fully admitting they cannot fail to be 

 troublesome and irritating to the birds, we are by no means prepared to go so far as to support the 

 assertion sometimes made, that they suck the blood from the young ones, and cause their death by 

 literally draining them. We can call to mind several nests of exceptionally strong birds which, 

 when we had occasion to remove them into more commodious lodgings, we found had been reared 

 over a perfect ant-hill of insects lining the under part of the nest in a moving mass, in numbers 

 one would have thought sufficient to have effected a massacre of the innocents in a single 

 night. Nor are we, on the other hand, prepared to support the theory of many old breeders that 

 birds are never so strong and healthy as when infested with these insects, and who regard them as 

 positive indications of robust health. Candour, however, compels us to state that, though we would 

 rather be without them if only on the ground of cleanliness and apparent comfort of the bird, 

 and would, and do always, use every precaution to prevent their appearance, we have never been 

 able to trace any evil results to their presence, even when under a visitation almost as severe in its 

 way as that experienced by Pharaoh of old. We have sometimes almost been inclined to question 

 whether the blood they contain (we suppose it is blood) is really obtained from the birds, and we 

 will give our reasons. In our breeding-room we had a chair which once had a back, but the top of 

 it having come to grief in a collision in the nursery while doing duty as a stage-coach, we confiscated 

 it, and having mended it by a transverse lashing of stout cord, appropriated it to our special use. 

 It stood in a corner most remote from our cages, several feet from the nearest, and yet we found the 

 parts where the cord was bound round the broken back completely infested with Canary parasites, 

 apparently as full of blood as their relatives in the cages. Now, if this were the blood of the birds, 

 the insects must have travelled every night in a train across the floor like a regiment of ants, up 

 the wall, and into a cage ; have feasted on some victim ; and have returned to their quarters by 

 the morning. We can readily account for their presence in the chair, but we are at a loss for a 

 theory to account for, the presence of the "blood." One or two stray travellers could easily 

 plant the colony, but an old well-seasoned piece of beech will not yield blood, even to the most 

 persistent suction. We state the fact as it occurred, and we drew attention to it some years 

 ago in illustration of the way in which such insects could people the most unlikely places. We 

 do not say that the insects do not suck the birds, but in the face of our own observations, we 

 scarcely think it necessarily follows that because they are seen at nights running about on the 

 birds, and are full of a red fluid, that such must be the case, any more than the fact of the saddle 

 being found under the sick man's bed was conclusive evidence that the patient had eaten the 

 horse. 



".• We return to the discovery of the floury substance referred to just now, and remark that 

 this is the time to nip the affair in the bud. Had a still sharper look-out been kept, and a 

 visit paid to the cages every night by candle-light, it is more than probable that the one or two 

 first comers who caused the mischief would have been detected and put out of the way. As 



