CAGE AND SINGING BIRDS. 
107 
of feathered songsters, and whether in health or sickness, it 
seldom fails to pour forth its melodious notes ; nay, Bechstein 
tells us that he always endeavoured to procure those birds in 
which the red on the breast was replaced by a bright orange, 
a change attributable to age or sickness, " because their song 
was clear and beautiful." 
Naturally the linnet is rather a wild shy bird, and during 
the summer is found dispersed over the hilly and mountain- 
ous parts of the country, more specially where thickets 
abound ; in the winter it approaches the habitations of man, 
collecting in flocks like the larks. If you wish to find the 
nest of the linnet, you must look for it close to the ground. 
It is usually placed in a low bush, constructed of grass, 
moss, and wool, and lined with hair ; the eggs, from four to 
si;s in number, are bluish white, sparely spotted with pur- 
plish gray and brown. The young are somewhat difficult 
to rear, unless you can take the parents with them, who will, 
as when wild, continue to feed them from the crop. Should 
you not be able to do this, crumbs of bread soaked in water, 
squeezed dry, and mixed with crushed rape-seed, is the 
best food for them. They should be taken from the nest as 
soon as the tail-feathers begin to grow, if you wish them to 
acquire an artificial song, for if left longer they will get 
themselves stored with the notes of the old birds. Linnets 
are difficult birds to catch. In the spring*, before they have 
paired, a good decoy with limed twigs will sometimes do 
the business. They are very fond of lettuces, and may 
occasionally be taken by nooses or bird-lime, placed among 
these vegetables. Bechstein says that shepherds some- 
times arrange the salt-troughs for the sheep, so as to entrap 
the linnets that come to pick up the grains scattered to 
entice them. 
The best food for these birds in confinement, according 
to this authority, is summer rape-seed, which it is not ne- 
cessary to soak, as the linnet is almost entirely a seed- 
eating bird, and has strong digestive powers. We would 
recommend a little mixture of canary-seed with this, and 
occasionally green food 5 hemp-seed must not be given, nor 
winter rape, for although the bird eats of this when wild 
with impunity, yet, when deprived of the opportunity of 
strong exercise, this seed acts almost like a poison. Linnets 
