THE LINNET. 
quill ; besides this, the cock-bird has a white collar and a little 
white in the tail-feathers. The hen-linnet is altogether smaller, 
and of a lighter and more uniform brown than the cock. If it 
is a clever or educated bird you are about to buy, hear him 
sing before you pay for him, and be sure the seller stands at 
THE MALE LINNET’S WING. 
some distance while the bird is singing ; for, by a movement of 
the hand, a motion of the mouth even, a bird-trainer can stop 
a bird instantly when he is about to do something bad. 
How to Raise Nestling Linnets. — As soon as you get the 
nestlings home, cover them up warm, and give them a meal of 
scalded rape- seed, mixed with bread soaked in warm milk, and 
squeezed nearly dry. Repeat this every two hours, from six in 
the morning till dusk in the evening. Four mouthfuls at each 
meal will be enough. By the time they are about four weeks 
old they will beghi to feed themselves ; then, with the scalded 
rape-seed and soaked bread, you may mix the white of hard- 
boiled egg. Let this be fresh every morning in the winter and 
twice a day in the summer, or they will certainly die. 
When they begin to feed themselves, the sooner you break 
them of the sopped-bread diet the better. Mix rape, flax, and 
cana,ry-seed, well bruise it, and strew it about the cage, at 
the same time supplying them with less soft food, from which 
they may thus be gradually weaned. Some people give their 
nestlings rape-seed alone ; this may be very good in the 
summer, but hi the winter it is not comforting enough. The 
following German paste should also be given: crumb of well- 
baked bread, soaked for an hour, and then squeezed dry ; add 
to your bread double its quantity of barley meal ; make into a 
stiff paste with boiling milk. When the nestlings are five 
weeks old they may be separately caged off and hung below 
a singing-bird. 
The linnet is imitative, and may be taught the song either 
of the lark or of the robin. Indeed, to my thinking, the song 
of the titlark and the linnet is amazingly alike. If you desire 
to teach your linnet the song of another bird, you have nothing 
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