THE CHAEITNCH. 
There you have him, his heat as blue as a bilberry, and as 
stout a singer as the woods contain. Be careful how you 
detach the tenacious twig from the captured bird. Then tie a 
bit of thread round his wings- — or, better still, take with you a 
few India-rubber bands that are sold at the stationers, and 
pass one over his body, so that he may not flutter about in the 
store cage, and perhaps do himself an injury. The advantage 
of placing your snare beneath an overhanging bough is, that 
the wild bird will perch on it before he strikes at the dummy, 
and thus have a fairer chance than if his swoop is in any way 
impeded. However, where they can strike they will. I once, 
for experiment sake, stuck the snare in the trunk of a poplar 
tree that was destitute of foliage for at least thirty feet up. 
My decoy had not uttered three notes, before down came the 
wild finch like a stone, with such force as to break his way 
through the whalebones to the stuffed bird, into whose head he 
drove his bill deep enough to have killed him on the spot if 
he had happened to have been alive. 
"When you get home, put your captives in separate cages, 
and for the whole of the first day cover them over so as to 
exclude the light : the bird will thus be induced to go to roost 
and sleep away his grief. Take care, however, to remove the 
cloth from the cage before you retire for the night, and to hang 
his cage (well supplied with seed and water) in such a position 
that he will receive the comfort and warmth of the morning 
sun. If he should mope a little, don’t be alarmed ; indeed it is 
better to see him creep into a corner and appear very miser- 
able at first, than that he at once greedily eats all that is put 
before him. These latter symptoms indicate an unnatural in- 
difference to the loss of liberty, which is frequently ominous of 
an early death. 
The following is Bechstien’s recipe for taming a chaffinch in 
half an hour : — “ Let the nostrils of the bird be smeared with 
the essence of bergamot (or with any other essential oil), by 
which it is rendered for a short time so insensible that it can be 
subjected to the training, which consists chiefly in accustoming 
it to sit tranquilly upon the finger, in teaching it to hop from 
one finger to the other, and in preventing it from flying away. 
It may, it is true, fly away a few times, but this it will not 
continue to do, especially if taken into a dark place, behind a 
curtain, and it is thus also secured from the mischance of flying 
against the walls and window-frames, and thus injuring itself. 
If it at once sit quiet, the finger of the other hand is held beneath 
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