Propensity to Plucking. 65 



when she is apt to illustrate the truth of the aphorism that somebody makes it his business to 

 find mischief for idle hands. With her new nest and fresh moss, she may forget that the silky 

 feathers of her young brood make capital nest-linings ; but if this once occurs to her, she will 

 commence to pluck them in the most remorseless way, and then there remains nothing but to 

 remove the young birds and the cock into another cage, where he will continue to feed them. 

 This is the use of a " nursery " cage; into which the young ones can be placed alone, and the whole 

 hooked on to the open doorway, when the old birds will feed through the wires, which must be 

 sufficiently far apart to allow of the birds getting their heads through without their bodies following. 

 It is a most objectionable plan to widen a few spaces for this purpose, since it will be plain that to 

 open out one space is to contract the next ; and also, if two wires be pulled apart at the bottom, 

 they will still be close at the top, and the hole thus made is nothing better than a trap in which the 

 bird is invited to put its head, with the certainty of being strangled if it should happen to move it 

 up, and be caught and held by the neck in the narrower part. The arrangement of the front perch 

 in the bottom of a cage of this kind must be such that when the young ones are sitting on it they 

 will be just out of the reach of the hen, or whenever she finds one of them sufficiently near she will 

 have a few feathers. The breeder will at once recognis~e the necessity of keeping a sharp look-out 

 for small feathers in the new nest, for this disposition to pluck becomes, apart from the pain and 

 inconvenience to the young birds, a positive calamity in the case of birds in which it is imperative 

 that the original wing and tail feathers should remain intact. It will be seen, when we come to 

 treat of varieties, that there are at least two in which this is one of the show conditions, and it is 

 not pleasant to find one's prospects in this direction clouded so early. And this " show " view 

 of the question extends still further. Not to mention the discomfort which must be felt when 

 deprived of their natural covering, and the injurious effects of the drain on the system which one 

 would imagine must exist consequent on the growth of a second crop of feathers at a time when 

 the vital energies should be directed to maturing growth in other directions, this plucking is a most 

 unfortunate thing, because when the natural moult begins, the crop of new feathers which will have 

 already appeared on the plucked places will be a different shade of colour from that produced 

 under the system of feeding adopted during the moult, which affects only those feathers in which 

 the blood is circulating. If the plucking have been very slight, and the number oi new feathers 

 only trifling, we should no more hesitate to pull them out again than we should to pull out the 

 grey hairs from our head. But if the plucking have been, such as we have too frequently seen it, 

 thorough and entire, leaving the bird positively naked, to attempt to remove a second growth 

 would be virtually to pluck the bird alive — a piece of cruelty nothing could justify. This 

 disposition to pluck is, perhaps, one of the most vexing incidents of the breeding-room. We 

 spoke of it as commencing at a comparatively matured age ; but it is sometimes begun when 

 the birds are very young,- and not sufficiently fledged to be left all night without the protecting 

 covering of the mother^s wing, and is then very distressing and painful to witness. In these cases 

 a deal can be done by wrapping the nest in flannel at night, and placing it in a covered basket 

 — a good plan also to adopt in the case of forsaken nestlings for which no foster-mother can 

 be found. The nursery-cage system will, however, answer well in the majority of instances, and 

 if the cock can only get at them by day, through the wires or by any other means, he will keep 

 at it like a Trojan, to all appearances liking the job. Worth his weight in gold is a good cock. 

 Turn him into a "flight" with the young birds, and he will keep his eye on them, and will always 

 " ken his ain bairns." It is very amusing to see the performance when the cock has been away for 

 a while, and the young are hungry. They pounce upon him in a body, and drive him into a 

 corner, or perhaps he retreats thither on strategic grounds, and ensconced there, supported on his 

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