1 68 Canaries and Cage-Birds. 



others. We have seen some year-old and even older birds of high character very little changed, 

 but all are so far changed as to unfit them for show purposes, while others put on age very rapidly ; 

 and this tendency to decline in colour, which increases with each successive moult, is a feature 

 to which we shall have to call attention in our remarks on the London Fancy, with which 

 interesting Canary we have expressed our belief that the Lizard is closely allied. A change, 

 equally striking, also takes place in the flight and tail feathers; which become perfectly white 

 at their tips and not unfrequently for a considerable portion of their length ; and this change, it 

 will be obvious, occurring whether the feathers be moulted in the due course of nature or 

 abstracted by accident, the damage to the show prospects of a bird which ought to have its 

 eighteen flights and twelve tail-feathers "black, home to the quill," which may result from its 

 losing any of them and having them replaced by others white-tipped, must at once suggest that 

 extreme care should be taken to prevent any such misadventure during moult. Unfortunately, 

 these members, as we showed in our remarks on " Flighting and Tailing " — an operation from 

 which the Lizard is happily exempt — are only too apt to get injured, especially the tail, and the 

 vicissitudes of a Lizard's youth are a fruitful source of anxiety to the breeder. Supposing him to 

 have left his nest with his full complement or with the loss of only a few small feathers from the 

 back, which are of no moment, because they must ultimately be shed in a few weeks, and to have 

 come unscathed out of the nursery-cage, there is still the ordeal of the "flight-cage" and the 

 prospect of persecution and mischievous plucking by his fellows to be faced ; and he is a lucky 

 and generally a plucky Lizard who reaches the mature age of eight weeks in full possession of 

 his entire original wardrobe. To reduce the chances of accident to a minimum, in the first place, 

 never catch or handle a young Lizard in any way if it can possibly be avoided. In transferring 

 young stock from one cage to another, do it gently and without any fuss. Place the open doors 

 opposite to each other, and, quietly and patiently, coax the birds to hop from one to the other. 

 Don't hold the second cage in such a way as to expose the hand. The first mental act of a bird 

 on entering a new cage is repentance, and actuated by fear and fright he always makes strong 

 efforts to do himself as much injury as possible in endeavouring to get out again. Much of this 

 may be obviated by having a sliding door in one end of the flight-cage, and keeping a smaller 

 open-wire cage constantly hooked on at the aperture : curiosity will soon induce the young birds 

 to explore the new premises, and there will not be much difficulty in a short time in singling out 

 any bird and caging him. If a bird must be handled, as in case of sickness when it may be 

 necessary to administer medicine, don't hold him in the orthodox fashion by the tail and tips of 

 the wings, but lightly grasped in the hand, or the consequence of a sudden flutter may be that he 

 will leave between your finger and thumb, in the shape of his tail-feathers, whatever chance he 

 may have had of adding to your stock of kitchen utensils. 



If the cage accommodation be such that all young birds must be transferred to " flights," there 

 to take their chance, let them be as large and roomy as possible — a little room, in fact, such as we 

 described on page 70. We have seen some excellent arrangements of this kind in Mr. C. J. Salt's 

 aviaries at Stapenhill, Burton-on-Trent, where corners of rooms boxed off with a few pieces of 

 upright scantling, across which were tightly tacked lengths of common cheese-cloth, made capital 

 temporary homes for birds likely to have their plumage injured or frayed by contact in clinging to 

 ordinary wirework. We thought the cloth was suggestive of hiding-places for insects ; but Mr. Salt 

 assured us that with thorough ventilation and scrupulous cleanliness he was entirely free from any 

 such pests. In such a retreat, young birds gain strength of wing by exercise, and can at any time 

 be caught without risk in a small net and soon rendered quiet and tame in a covered-up cage. 

 One advantage of such a flight-room is that it will hold a great numbcrj and that the occupants 



