26 
CAGE AND SINGING BIRDS. 
fully for use, tliougli giving a bird a few grains while they 
are moist with this excellent liquor does very well, but 
should not be constantly practised. The rice is only to be 
roughl}^ bruised so as to make it tender, and consequently 
easier eaten by the birds. I have observed," he con- 
tinues, " many persons in England give their birds loaf 
sugar, which is a great error. 1 advise in its place a small 
lump of bay salt, or cuttle bone, and now and then a drop or 
two of the spirits of nitre in their water." He says, too, that 
nestling linnets and the canary finch, educated under either 
the skylark, woodlark, or titlark, will adhere through life to 
the song of their instructor. To prevent all nestlings from 
learning the natural song of their parents, remove them 
out of their hearing, for although they cannot see until 
the ninth day, they hear from the moment they are 
hatched." 
The Germans are the most extensive and systematic bird 
trainers, perhaps, in the world, and a description of one or 
two of their schools would not be without interest ^ but we 
scarcely know that it would answer any useful end. The 
quotations which we have here given from De Berg and 
Bechstein, together with the directions which will be found , 
further on in our remarks upon young canaries, will, we 
apprehend, be sufficient for our readers, who should be ac- 
quainted with the terms by which birdsellers distinguish the 
several orders, or classes, into which they divide the songs of 
birds. First, then, the bird is said to warble, or quaver ^ when 
it always repeats the passages or single notes of its song in 
the same order, or with but little variation, as do the night- 
ingale and chaffinch ) it sings, when it utters the chirping or 
twittering song mingled with more distinct notes, but not in 
any regular order of succession, as do the siskin and red- 
breast. It whistles, or pipes, when its song consists of full, 
distinct fl-ate-like notes, forming a perfect chain of melody, 
which may or may not take the form of a certain recognised 
mr or tune, although frequently it does so. Of this we have 
examples in the trained canary, linnet, bullfinch, and several 
other bii'ds that have been carefully educated. 
