CAGE-BIRD TRAFFIC OF THE UNITED STATES. 



By Henry Oldys, 

 Assistant, Biological Surrey. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Three hundred thousand cage-birds, largely canaries, are annually 

 imported into the United States. Some of these are destined for 

 zoological parks and a few for private aviaries, but the great majority 

 find their way into the hands of those who desire to have a cage-bird 

 or two to brighten the home. This yearly influx of captive birds may 

 seem large, considering the comparatively small number usually in 

 evidence; but it must be remembered that they are scattered over an 

 area of more than 3,000,000 square miles, and are distributed among a 

 population of more than 80,000,000, which allows but 4 birds a year 

 to every 1,000 persons, or about 400 birds to a city of the size of 

 Columbus, Ohio. 



The practice of keeping live birds in confinement is worldwide and 

 extends so far back in histor}' that the time of • its origin is unknown. 

 It exists among the natives of tropical as well as temperate countries, 

 was found in vogue on the islands of the Pacific when they were first 

 discovered, and was habitual with the Peruvians under the Incas and the 

 Aztecs under Montezuma. Caged birds were popular in classic Greece 

 and Rome. The Alexandrian parrakeet — a ring-necked parrakeet of 

 India — which is much fancied at the present day, is said to have been 

 first brought to Europe by one of the generals of Alexander the 

 Great. Before this living birds had been kept by the nations of west- 

 ern Asia, and the voices of bulbuls and other attractive singers doubt- 

 less added to the charms of the hanging gardens of Babylon, while 

 in China and Japan the art of domesticating wild birds has been prac- 

 ticed for many Centuries. 



It is not difficult to account for the motive that underlies this wide- 

 spread habit. The same spirit that leads to the domestication of wild 

 flowers for adornment of the home and the pleasure derived from their 

 beauty or fragrance is responsible for the similar transplanting of 

 wild birds from their natural homes to those of their captors, and 

 the parallel extends to the subsequent production of new varieties. 



As a people, Americans have less of this spirit than prevails else- 

 where. Despite the multitudes of birds weekly entering the country — 

 a single vessel will occasionally deliver ten or fifteen thousand — our 



165 



