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FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



Srll Pet DErwri^T- 



-(K^-All communications and contributions intended for this depart- 

 ment should be addressed to HOWARD I. IRELAND, Concordville, 

 Delaware County, Pa. 



(For Fanciers' Journal.) 



SKYE TERRIER "JACK.'' 



Mr. Jos. M. Wade. 



My Dear Sir: I am pleased to learn that you like the 

 dog so well. He is a general favorite, and in answer to 

 your inquiries for more information about him, I would say 

 that he is a thoroughbred, imported by Charles C. Spring, 

 Esq., a gentleman of this city, and one of my personal 

 friends ; was sent from London by Mr. John Baker, and 

 presented to me by Mr. Spring. He is considered the best 

 ratter in this part of the State, and is now twenty-eight 

 months old. I have many times been offered $50 for him ; 

 but aside from his being a gift, I would not part with him. 

 He is probably better known in this city than any other 

 dog. He is an attendant at church, parish meetings, city 

 council, Masonic gatherings ; in fact, everywhere his master 

 is, and when I go to Boston or Providence, he will get in 

 the rear car, if I do not discover him in time to prevent it, 

 and when we get out of the city a bit, he finds me. He is 

 well known at every one of the four depots in this_city, and 

 is a favorite wherever known. A. D. Warren. 



Worcester, Mass. 



DISEASES OF CANARIES. 



The mortality which waits on Canaries from the moment 

 they leave the shell, and even before they leave it, and which 

 follows them so closely through life, but especially during 

 the first few weeks of their existence, is one of the greatest 

 causes of anxiety to the breeder. Under the cheering and 

 encouraging influences of early spring, when animal and 

 vegetable existence alike seem to be rousing from the sleep 

 of winter, and making active preparation for the business 

 of the year, when everything is anxious for a fresh start in 

 the race for life, and the chills and disappointments of by- 

 gone days are forgotten in hopeful anticipations of the 

 future, it is not to be wondered at that the oft-repeated 

 occupation of castle building and counting one's chickens 



before they are hatched, should be indulged in, despite our 

 experience of the fallacy of such a mode of procedure. 

 When the breeder retires to his sanctum sanctorum, and 

 seated on the orthodox chair — an inverted show cage — views 

 his score or more pairs of strong, healthy birds, all busily 

 engaged in setting their houses in order, is it to be wondered 

 at that ho casts an eye to his large empty flight cages, and 

 pictures to himself the not-far-distant time when he may 

 expect to see them filled ; and as he watches the smoke from 

 his post-prandial pipe curling gracefully upwards, can he be 

 blamed if he indulges in a dream of something hazy and 

 indistinct looming in the future, assuming the shape of 

 freshly-moulted young birds, making his name famous, and 

 rewarding him for months of patient care and attention to 

 his well-selected stock? This is the view of matters in 

 March or April, but August sees the flight cages almost 

 empty, and disappointment written over everything. 



How to account for it, is the question. His twenty hens 

 have laid, upon a moderate calculation, upwards of three 

 hundred eggs. A reasonable percentage have been empty, 

 a few young birds have died in the shell, but the remainder 

 have been duly ushered into existence fine, healthy, lusty 

 little "raw gobbies," who were never tired of stretching 

 their long necks and opening wide their red mouths to beg 

 for food. Of these a large proportion never received a bite, 

 but continued to beg most piteously till too weak even to 

 raise their little heads in a mute appeal to their apparently 

 unnatural mother. Perhaps paterfamilias, when he occa- 

 sionally found the hen off the nest, would give them a 

 mouthful on the sly, and it may be that the anxious breeder 

 himself went the round of his cages as often as opportunity 

 permitted, doing what he could with a bit of stick, and a 

 little moistened yolk of hard-boiled egg, screwing up his 

 mouth, and manufacturing most affectionate and enticing 

 little squeaks to induce some half-starved morsel of skin and 

 bone to consent to be fed. But it was only to put off the 

 evil day. The end of such neglected nests must come, and 

 come it does. 



Another portion would go on famously for five or six days, 

 both parents being most assiduous in their attention, but at 

 the end of that time, nest after nest of young ones as fat as 

 moles would die from no neglect of their parents, but appar- 

 ently killed by kindness. Prom six days to a fortnight old 

 no young bird seemed free from the attack of some insidious 

 enemy, and only a very few ultimately found their way into 

 the roomy flight prepared with such careful hands in the 

 early spring. 



Once there, and able to shift for themselves, surely all 

 danger is past ! But no, they still die, and anxious inqui- 

 rers write to know the reason why, and to ask, is it possi- 

 ble to avert the fate of these last, the small results of a 

 season's breeding. I can only say what I do myself. When 

 I find a young bird mopes, and sits with his head under his 

 wing, and his feathers turned the wrong way, I blow the 

 feathers from the breast. So long as that remains plump 

 and round, I leave Nature to work out her own cure; but 

 if the breast bone begins to show a sharp edge, and there is 

 a falling away of flesh, I discharge the contents of the how- 

 els, by giving two or three good drops of castor oil, which 

 operates quickly, and in the majority of instances the sick 

 birds recover. As a precautionary measure, give as little 

 soft food as possible, but grind or crush some white seed, 

 and make them eat that, or nothing. — W. A. Blakston, 

 in Journal of Horticulture. 



