THE BIRDS OF THE AVIARY 



275 



animals in wliich we see a failure f)f color, are and solid, with perches and poles; the food 



generally weak and poor singers. should be flaxseed, S(jaked bread, and ants' 



We must now take leave of these charming eggs. The sitting lasts si.xteen days ; the eggs 



domestic birds and study others less musically are greenish blue with little tkirk brown spots. 



gifted, but nevertheless very worthy of attention. The wild llinish lias a way of |)erching, in the 



early morning, on the to|j branch ot a tree to 



VII. Other Colored Son-g-Birds warble his matin song : 



Without tracing the line between the graniv- t^, ,,,,•,,,, ■ , 



^ '^ 1 hal .s the wise Inrush, who siiij^s each soni; twice over, 



orOUS and the carnivorous species, we must i^^^t you shoul.l think he never eouhl recapture 



name a few of the joyous songsters who inhabit It.s lirst line, carele.vs rapture. 



The Avi.ary of the Kixg of ExtiL.ANo 



our cages and aviaries. We find among them 

 many beautiful birds of pure stock and many 

 bastards, known in different lands under such 

 different names that it would take whole books 

 to record them. The same bird may have ten 

 or a dozen names ; consequently it is best to put 

 the Latin name after the famihar name of each. 

 First we will take the thrush family ( Tiirdi) 

 and its singing master {Titrdiis musicus). We 

 find him here and there as a bird of passage, 

 though he makes his home throughout Europe 

 generally. He is easy to raise and to accustom 

 to confinement, but the cage must be large 



The hen bird builds her nest by preference 

 near water. 



The black thrush {Turdus nicnila), a Euro- 

 pean bird, commonly called blackbird there, 

 is a wary, cunning fellow, but not so wary that 

 he does not readily get accustomed to captivity 

 in a cage. Mis whistle is lively, and he tries to 

 imitate the songs of other birds. The female 

 is very different in appearance from the male, 

 being brown in color, while her mate is black. 

 It is not diiflcult to teach young thrushes to 

 sing various tunes, provided they are sung to 

 them morning and evening in a Ciuiet room 



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