UNEXPECTED TRAITS IN BIRDS. 
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UNEXPECTED TRAITS IN BIRDS. 
DO not know if others have observed the same thing, 
but I think I see in my pet canary traits of no end of 
other birds. The last trait of this kind I noticed was 
the following : He is very fond of the smaller green 
peas, and is often permitted to have one as a treat, and recently 
he has discovered the nicest way to deal with them. If he 
attempts to peck them on a flat surface they are apt, from the 
shininess of the outside skin which he does not eat, and wishes 
to break through, to roll away from him, and it may be fall into 
holes from which he cannot retrace them himself, so now he 
carries them to his cage. There is hung on the side of it a 
piece of what is called “ cuttle fish ” on which to whet his beak. 
The string, which is run through the centre of this “ cuttle fish ” 
to hang it by, has worn a small round half-cup-like hole ; into 
this hole the pea is dropped, and then is eaten with complete 
ease and comfort. In this, my canary reminds me of the nut- 
hatch, placing the nut to be broken in the crevice of a tree, so 
that it cannot roll away as he pecks at it. 
Then he often reminds me of the parrot kind in this, that he 
will, with the nicest art, fix on the perch with his claw any 
green stuff, a bit of chickweed or groundsel, which he has 
carried up, and thus will manage to eat it comfortably and 
without sullying it with the sand &c., in the bottom of his cage. 
He is like a jackdaw or magpie in the love he has for carrying 
up into his cage not only bits of thread and string, but anything 
shiny, as a small morsel of tinfoil, such as that taken off Lambert 
and Butler’s bird’s-eye tobacco, and keeping them in a corner of 
the cage when cleared -out ; and when that business is in hand 
he seems to be particularly anxious about the fate of his 
collections. 
I was once rather laughed at in print, even by a friend of my 
own, for saying that I discovered some trace of humour in a 
canary I had, which was so tame that it would leap on the 
shoulder, and, if not taken notice of, would pull one single hair, 
and make me start. At this the tiny thing would then fly oft 
tweet-tweeting and flirting his tail, and looking back to see what 
impression he had made. The writer said that he believed in 
humour in the more highly developed animals, such as dogs and 
cats, but not in a canary ; but he forgot that some of our most 
decided animal humourists, such as starlings, magpies, and jack- 
daws, belong to the bird tribe. I believe that all who have kept 
pet canaries, which are free to fly about the room, could tell of 
such traits being developed in their favourites ; and I entirely 
agree with a good authority, who wrote in December, 1891, in 
one of the ablest articles on bird life I have ever read, the 
following sentences : 
“ It is a little hard on birds to bracket them with the 
