148 
Birds and Flowers . 
gently in a saucer of warm water for five minutes, 
or nearly that, and then set down the patient on a 
small heap of oatmeal. Two or three days of this 
treatment will result in a cure, and if your pets 
are tame, they will eat hemp-seeds while in the 
bath, and not seem at all frightened. Their feet 
often get like this when the birds have been long 
without bathing. A little bath that you can hook 
on every morning and take away again later is 
likely, however, to be a grand pleasure, both to the 
birds and you, and you can build up your bath into 
any fancy pattern with pretty shells and stones. 
You should be extremely careful to use no 
cement with white lead in it, and also no paint 
or putty where the birds can at all get at it. 
Brass wire also should always be avoided. 
Stained and varnished deal, or plain polished 
maple is the very best wood to use. 
Any cage out of use should be thoroughly 
scoured out with yellow soap and water, and 
should be hung up somewhere in a dry airy place, 
to freshen for its next inmates. 
Canaries, I must add, can be taught to whistle 
tunes, by often whistling to them slowly and very 
distinctly ; they learn, like all birds, much easiest 
if taught very young. 
