52 
HINTS ON CAGE-BIRDS. 
worthy of the breeder’s consideration in relation to bird shows: 
they are an excellent medium for disposing of surplus stock at a 
good profit. A bird which wins at a show is likely to realise any 
price, within reason, at which it may have been entered, and 
instances have occurred in which the most absurd prices have been 
paid for quite common birds. 
I once knew a gentleman who had a pet bright yellow Norwich 
Canary, for which he had originally paid 15s. A friend advised 
him to show his bird, but he objected on the ground that it might 
be purchased, and he would greatly miss it. “ Put on a prohibitive 
price,” said his friend. So he entered it in the schedule at £15, 
and a rich old lady snapped it up at that price. I never had that 
luck, but it might come to anyone. But, though it may be useful 
to get rid of surplus stock at a show, it is rarely worth the avicul- 
turist’s while, unless he is exclusively an exhibitor, to purchase 
there, though a useful bird may sometimes be picked up at 
a reasonable price. 
There is a third type of aviculturist, with whom I have more 
sympathy than either of the preceding, namely, the man who keeps 
birds, not merely to occupy his time and delight his senses, not 
merely for the sake of acquiring prize-cards, medals, and cups, but 
with a view to enlarging his own mind and those of others, 
by studying and afterwards putting on record the results of 
his observations upon the habits and peculiarities of his pets. This 
is the work of which 1 have given an outline in Chapter V II. 
To learn anything by the study of living birds, that is to say, 
to leam it accurately, you must sit down and watch carefully for 
hour’s together — nay, I will go further, and say that, if you 
are watching the manner in which change of plumage is effected, 
you must be constantly on the alert, day after day, for weeks 
together. It was only after such careful study, confirmed by the 
examination of cock-birds which died during the assumption of the 
courting plumage, that I was convinced that the change of the 
Weavers from the winter to the summer dress was chiefly effected 
by growth of colour in the feathers themselves ; only the feathers 
of the crown, neck, rump, and flanks being moulted, to make way 
for the long plumes characteristic of the wedding dress. In the 
Indigo Finch I much doubt whether any of the winter fcathei’s are 
moulted, as I still have a dead bird, and have given away others, show- 
ing most of the feathers in a transition stage between the brown and 
blue plumage. One of the most interesting occupations of the 
bird-keeper is watching the manner in which birds build. Most 
nests are formed in a very simple method; that is to say, most 
nests of the cup shape. The chief art, after collecting a mass of 
material, consists in tucking in all the ends which appear inside. 
The outside walls are partly strengthened by spiders’ web or wool, 
a few of the loose ends of twig or grass being bent over and pushed 
into the wall, so that they act as binders. The inside cup is formed 
mechanically : a mass of soft material (mud or cow dung in the 
