214 Caxar/ls and Cage-Birds. 



^vith a view to coddling and pampering, but being thoughtful to provide for protection against 

 sudden changes and extremes, from which greater danger is to be apprehended than from a 

 uniformly very low temperature, more care being necessary with imported birds than with 

 •home-bred stock, for the reasons previously stated. On no point in connection with Canary- 

 breeding is there greater difference of opinion than on the subject of artificial warmth; but an 

 extensive observation confirms us in our estimate of the importance of being prepared for 

 emergencies, and especially in the case of these birds during the early part of the - breeding 

 season, when it is just as much incumbent on the breeder to afford seasonable protection as 

 it is for the gardener to protect his half-hardy plants from unseasonable frost — tlie one must 

 not be force i any more than the other. In judicious management the operator shows his 

 •knowledge of his business, and he is a poor gardener who fires his houses to excess. 



As regards any special management of the young iii the nest, there is not much to note 

 of real consequence. If anything, they are rather more ungainly and clumsy and given to 

 sprawling about than other young birds, and when they reach a size at which it is well to give 

 them a more roomy nest than that in which they were hatched, it should be sufficiently large 

 not to require a second change, and sufficiently deep to prevent any youngster who overbalances 

 himself when standing on his toes to beg from falling out of bed. This could not occur in the case 

 of the Continental nest-box, which, we may remark in passing, appears to us, as the " London " cage 

 also has always done, to suggest the idea of a nest built on the ground, rather than after the 

 custom of finches generally, and further suggests to the practical breeder sundry difficulties in the 

 way of cleanliness which do not occur when the margin of the nest is clear. We apprehend this 

 can be got over by daily attention, as also could a change of nest be managed by substituting a 

 fresh box with a larger basket. Some breeders, however, object to any changes whatever ; the 

 fewer the better, perhaps, but sometimes they are necessary. An artificial nest of flannel or felt 

 confined within walls of basket-work, wood, tin, or earthenware, is not so elastic and disposed to 

 accommodate itself to the requirements of a rising family as is one built by the bird itself. The 

 deep, unyielding cup of the nest of the Song Thrush always appears to us to be designed for 

 prospective use. 



Young Belgians, at about the half-fledged stage, are rather hobble-de-hoyish, all legs, wings, and 

 neck, and swagger and sway about as we have seen in a great, gaunt puppy on long, clumsy legs, 

 apparently belonging to some other dog's body. We miss the chubby plumpness of smaller birds, 

 and when a nest of four or five are standing swaying about with that wide, red fissure at the 

 end of the long neck, every facility should be afforded the hen to feed with comfort. It is not a 

 bad plan to have the perches above the level of the margin of the nest ; and it will be found that, 

 in feeding, a hen will at all times prefer this higher stand from which she appears to have greater 

 command-than when perched on the nest-edge doing her best to be impartial in her distribution 

 of food. The art of feeding is a natural feminine gift. We have thought so from the time when 

 we discovered how futile were all our efforts to resist the attacks made on us with a spoon 

 containing one or other of those treacle-and-brimstone mixtures which so frequently haunt the 

 •spring-time of early youth with their shadow. 



From the hour the young birds leave the nest it must be laid down as a rule, not to be 

 departed from except in a case of emergency, that tJicy must never be IianUcd. It will be 

 remembered we gave the same injunctions with respect to the Lizard and London Fancy : in those 

 cases it was on account of the risk of injury to the feather ; in this, it is undesirable owing to the 

 sensitive character of the bird. Other Canaries do not require to be tamed : the Belgian does. In 

 any other exhibition-bird, so long as it is not wild, sprightliness and vivacity are virtues, and 



