Attractions of the Canary. 3 



have a great deal to do with developing a liking in any direction. Born in a woodland 

 district, native woodland songsters are the early friends and companions of one ; while others, 

 and they are by far the greater number, unacquainted with these rustic beauties, make 

 friends with the bird within reach of all, and instal the Canary as favourite at home. And 

 well he adapts himself to any circujTistances. It matters not whether he be in a gilded cage 

 in a drawing-room, tended by gentle hands, singing finished melodies acquired under expensive 

 masters, or rolling out his own noisy, rollicking, untutored ditty in a cottage ; he is equally 

 at home. Cheerful and sprightly, companionable and docile, varied and beautiful in plumage, 

 easily kept and easily bred, it is not to be wondered at that he is such a favourite ; not the 

 least of his many virtues being his strongly-marked social disposition and domestic proclivities. 



The way in which a pair of Canaries set up housekeeping and order their household, 

 is enough in itself to give the bird a strong claim on our sympathies. Other birds will, 

 under favourable conditions, occasionally breed in confinement ; but the hero of the first 

 portion of our volume has, for generations, established himself in our families as one of us, 

 and regardless of prying eyes or inquisitive curiosity, builds his little homestead and treats 

 us to all the interesting details of bird-life which can be seen nowhere else but in his 

 little establishment. There is a strange fascination in a bird's nest, and few there are who 

 cannot recollect with what emotions of delight and wonder they made their first discovery of 

 the family chimney-corner of even the humble hedge-sparrow with its treasure of little blue 

 eggs, carefully concealed in a quiet nook in the garden ; and who that has them has not 

 lifted his children, one by one, to peer quietly through the gently-parted leaves, and take 

 stealthy glances at the little freehold } Who will say they were not wiser and better for 

 each visit .' If there be living poetry in songs without words, where look for tenderer 

 sentiment, purer rhythm, or sweeter cadence } It is not often that with all our care and 

 watching we are able to observe the whole of the daily routine of such a little household, or 

 to learn how, without design or copy and without ever having seen a model, a bird constructs its 

 nest after an unvarying pattern peculiar to its kind. It is one of the mysteries of creation ; 

 and creation is full of these, though some are of such every-day occurrence that we cease to 

 regard them as such. But our friend the Canary brings much of this home to us, and shows 

 us, with scarcely any reserve, how the thing is done, busying about all day long, doing and 

 undoing in a perpetual bustle yet with wonderful method, till the work is turned out in 

 inimitable style. A breeding-cage is an ornament to any house, and almost any room in it. 



It is not astonishing, then, that the demand for these birds is immense, the breeding and 

 rearing of them forming no inconsiderable item in the minor industries of the country. The 

 number of amateur breeders who adopt one or more of the many varieties of the Canary as 

 their speciality, and make the development of its beauties their study, is very large, as the 

 index of the catalogue of any public exhibition can attest ; but the number produced in 

 this way is but small compared with the continuous stream poured into the London market 

 by those who make a business of it. The city of Norwich, with the surrounding villages and 

 hamlets, counts its breeders by the thousand ; while in Coventry, Derby, Northampton, Notting- 

 ham, and other towns in the midland district where labour is of a sedentary character, as 

 well as in many towns in Yorkshire and Lancashire, the Canary is the poor man's savings- 

 bank ; the family pig where sanitary laws forbid the erection of a stye. In almost every 

 house where the click of the shuttle is heard, the music of the sewing-machine or other 

 adjunct to home industry, there, above all other sounds, rises the cheerful but noisy music 

 of the bird-room ; for small though the cottage be, the birds must have their share of it. 



