6 Caxaries AiVd Cage-Birds. 



gathers the wild flowers in the hedgerow or the grasses of our fields, or notes forms of vegetable 

 existence where the uneducated eye can detect nothing; any more than he who cultivates broad 

 acres, or who brings the flowers and fruits of the tropics under control in our latitudes. Neither 

 is he a trifler who, from among the endless resources at the command of any thinker who goes 

 through the world with his eyes open, selects for his special study the feathered portion of 

 creation ; nor when, among other marvels of instinctive work, he finds his attention arrested by a 

 simple little bird's nest, is he any more a trifler than the men whose constructive genius designed 

 the temples of old Egypt, who built the hoary Pyramids, who carved the solid mountains of 

 the Nile into edifices of colossal proportions, or those who raised, brick by brick from their 

 foundations, the more florid but less imposing structures of modern times. There is a time for 

 everything, even for trifles, if such there be. Our trifle is the Canary of to-day — the fancier's 

 Canary — and we propose to deal with him by describing minutely his distinctive features ; 

 showing how to breed him, feed him, moult him, develop his beauties, improve his shape and 

 feather, wash him, dry him, send him to the show ; how to get him there, what to do with him 

 when he is there, and how to get him home again ; how to bear success, how to use defeat, how 

 to help each other, and so help ourselves. 



