36 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



sides enamelled white with gold decorations, and 

 had a roof of moss green. This pair of birds ac- 

 complished three nestings their first season. The 

 initial brood contained six sturdy youngsters, the 

 second five, and the third four, so that I had 

 seventeen birds for my new house at the end of 

 the first summer. The young birds were of won- 

 derful colour, more than half of them sweet singers. 

 Some of them were green like their father, some 

 pure gold like their mother, some very largely 

 gold with only a touch of green, while others had 

 the green in predominance with beautiful markings 

 of yellow; others had their colour evenly divided 

 between green and yellow, and two of the brood 

 were a solid colour of pure warm dusty tan, a 

 shade I never before nor since saw produced in 

 the feathering of a canary. Unfortunately both of 

 these were hens. 



With the last brood, in flying from her nest in 

 haste, the mother bird dragged one of the young to 

 the edge of the nest from which he fell to the gravel 

 below. I found him in the morning and thought 

 him dead. Picking him up I started toward the 

 door to toss him out. While on the way a member 

 of the family asked me a question so I stood for a 

 few minutes talking. As I again turned toward 

 the door there was a slight movement on the palm 

 of my hand. I looked down to see that the tiny 

 bare bird with his eyes not yet open was responding 

 to warmth, so instead of throwing him away I re- 



