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EDITOEIAL GLEANINGS. 



In the 'Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture for 1906,' 

 recently published at Washington, Mr. Henry Oldys has published a 

 most interesting paper on " Cage-Bird Traffic of the United States." 

 We read that " 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 three million square miles A 

 are distributed among a population of more than eighty nr , 



which allows but four birds a year to every one thousand per or 



about four hundred birds to a city of the size of Columbus, 



" The practice of keeping live birds in confinement i,« jrld-wide, 

 and extends so far back in history 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 Western Asia, and the voices of Bulbuls and other attractive 

 singers doubtless added to the charms of the hanging gardens of Baby- 

 lon, while in China and Japan the art of domesticating wild birds has 

 been practised for many centuries. 



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

 widespread 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. 



