234 



C.-ix.-iM/^s .-LVD Cage-Birds. 



ordinary open-and-shut door at the side. Tlie birds are never handled, but are taught 

 to run hke Belgians, and in this respect are very tractable and obedient, so that any 

 opening suffices for passing them in and out of their cages. These show-cages are frequently 

 made in pairs, one being a shade smaller than the other, and the top of the larger being 

 contrived so as to lift up like a lid, the smaller is made to slide into it for convenience in 

 packing in boxes, for the Scotch fancier never trusts his fragile, airy temples to the tender 

 mercies of railway officials without a better protection than an ordinary wrapper. Sucli 

 a pair costs about fifteen shillings. The packing-cases vary in form from cumbersome 

 chests made to hold half-a-dozen, to most elegant boxes, inlaid with various cunning 

 devices, brass-handled, brass-bound, and with the owner's name and superscription emblazoned 

 thereon (see Fig. 6i), to hold sets of two or four, two birds being carried in the inner 



FIG. 6l.— SET OV CAGES AND PAC:KIN'G-CASli. 



cage and separated on arriving at their destination. The water-hole is always immediately 

 at the end of one of the perches, which rest on a strengthening cross-piece or stout wire 

 running round the cage. The water-vessels themselves are very suggestive, being invariably 

 small glasses minus the foot. Into such a cage as this the young birds are early taught to 

 run, and the rest is simply a question of taming down native wildness and accustoming thcni 

 to the necessary handling of the cage which must take place when putting a bird through its 

 drill in the show-room. 



Not less interesting than other surroundings of this bird are the public exhibitions, which 

 are held as so many weekly festivals throughout the winter in all the principal towns in the 

 south and south-west of Scotland. As with the Belgian shows, so with the Scotch ; we have 

 no parallel to them here. At one of the Glasgow shows we attended there were no less 

 than seven hundred and fifty separate entries of this one variety, and, including " pairs," close 

 on eight hundred and fifty pure Scotch Fancies were exhibited, which certainly indicates an 

 amount of enthusiasm fully bearing out all we have said of the hold this bird has on 



