ON TAMING BIRDS. 
57 
vill not be again vild.” Of course, I was delighted with the infor- 
mation, it was so entirely satisfactory; but, strangely enough, 1 
never put it to the test. The same man told me how to catch a 
bird easily in a bird-room, by drenching it with a squirt, so that it 
could not fly. He seemed to believe in the cold-water cure for 
everything, and ought to have opened a hydropathic establishment. 
With quietness, gentleness, constant attention to a bird's needs, 
it is tolerably certain to become fairly tame after its first moult in 
captivity, if not sooner: but some species are much more suscep- 
tible to kindness than others ; so that a Siskin, or almost any of the 
soft-bills, will become quite tamo and friendly far sooner than a 
Chaffinch, Stumbling, Linnet, or than many of the foreign Doves. 
I have had Siskins which flew on to my hand to feed three days 
after I purchased them, and I have had a Chaffinch which never 
really became quite steady after years in captivity. Of course, the 
easiest way to acquire perfectly companionable birds is to hand-rear 
them ; but, even then, you must continue to make pets of them 
after they have become able to attend to their own wants ; and you 
must on no account turn them into an aviary with a crowd of other 
birds (unless they cliauce to bo Siskins or Tits), or they will pro- 
bably become more wild than trapped birds ; this is generally the 
case with Linnets, as I know from sad experience. 
The reason why many bird-keepers fail to tame their birds is 
that they are in too great a hurry : they expect that, in every case, 
attention for two or three days will convince their pupil that they 
have only its welfare at heart. When, after a week, the bird still 
hustles about at their approach, they snatch up the cage, and per- 
haps shake it in their impatience, thus undoing the little good 
whichhas been done, and rendering the captive more nervous than ever. 
Patience and perseverance are necessary in this, as in all things. 
As Mr. Scott says, “ All that birds ask for is the right kind of 
treatment, and they will respond.” If you have a nervous bird to 
deal with, you must be all the more careful not to alarm it by rapid 
movements, by sudden startling sounds, by jolting its cage ; you 
must from time to time (but not too frequently) offer it some 
tempting morsel ; and if, as is probable, the bird is afraid to take 
it from your fingers, drop it into his cage where he can see it ; then 
retire from the cage to give him an opportunity of eating it. In 
time he will get more accustomed to you, -will edge up to the side 
and snatch it from you, and in the end will hop up confidently and 
take it quietly. “ Home was not built in a day,” and education of 
all kinds is like that — you cannot acquire it without concentrating 
your mind upon it. 
Of all dainties for ingratiating yourself with soft-billed birds 
spiders and mealworms are the most powerful ; spiders, however, 
are by far the more attractive to them, and certainly they are the 
more innocent. It is possible to give too many mealworms to some 
birds, but I believe they might eat spiders by the dozen without 
any overheating of the blood; indeed I believe they are slightly 
purgative in their action upon the stomachs of birds. 
