7 



November or December, has learned them directly from the natural 

 tuition of the Nightingale, Titlark, and Woodlark, and they wonder 

 why he does not imitate their call-notes, and why he does not 

 "croak" like the first, or "tit" like the second. The real fact is 

 that not one in a thousand of the youngsters has ever seen or heard 

 any other bird except Canaries. This will be evident when it is con- 

 sidered that at the time when the charming songsters mentioned 

 would be in song, and therefore capable of imparting their superior 

 strains to any learners, the young Canaries would not be old enough 

 to take advantage of the opportunity and remember what they 

 might hear. The adult birds were too old then to be capable of 

 adding to their repertory of " tours." Their period for learning had 

 passed, what they have not mastered by Christmas being only in the 

 rarest instances attempted later on. It is. therefore, quite a mistake 

 to credit the wild songsters with teaching the young prisoners. The 

 real instructor, after their own progenitors, is the trainer, very often 

 the breeder, who during many seasons has taught himself to imitate 

 a variety of picked strains of the above-mentioned and other wild 

 songsters. These strophes he reproduces on a small wind instrument, 

 the bird flute,* at the proper time, that is to say, when his young 

 stock have finished moulting, and when they are capable and anxious 

 to form their song. This period of instruction extends over the very 

 months when field birds are silent or absent. 



German Canaries are not required to be beautiful : they are not 

 mated to produce stock highly coloured, evenly marked, heavily 

 crested, surprisingly large, or crescent like in contour ; in short, they 

 are by their admirers to be heard only, not seen. Those that please 

 the ear are freely excused from pleasing the eye. The fact that the 

 birds have not been, as with us, bred for many generations with the 

 view of excelling in size, color, or shape, has, however, one decided 

 advantage to the owner, which is that the discrimination of the sexes 

 gives but very little trouble. Even to the unpractised eye the sex is 

 distinguishable by what I may call greater or lesser want of color. 

 This want of color is more pronounced in the female than in the 

 male, so much so that when still in the nest the latter can at once be 

 recognized by the richer color encircling the beak and eyes. What- 



* The Publisher, W. Rudd sells these flutes see advertisement page. 



