16 
PIPING BULLFINCHES. 
made a good livelihood by selling the best at five 
shillings a-piece. Since then, the trade has, we 
have reason to believe, still further increased. 
Though not very hardy, Canaries might possibly be 
naturalized in our country, by putting their eggs in 
the nests of Sparrows, Chaffinches, or other similar 
birds. The experiment has been partially tried in 
Berkshire, where a person for years kept them in an 
exposed aviary out of doors, where they seemed to 
suffer no inconvenience from the severest weather. 
But this singing-bird trade is not confined 
altogether to Canary-birds; — Piping-Bullfinches, so 
called from being taught to pipe different tunes, 
forming a considerable branch of it. In the month of 
June, the young ones, which are sought for in the 
nests of wild birds, are taken when about ten days 
old, and brought up by a person, who, by care and 
attention, so completely tames them, that they become 
perfectly docile and obedient. At the expiration of 
about a couple of months, they first begin to whistle, 
from which time their education begins; and no 
school can be more diligently superintended by its 
master, and no scholars more effectually trained to 
their own calling, than a seminary of Bullfinches. 
They are formed first into classes of about six in each, 
—-and after having been kept a longer time than usual 
without food, and confined in a dark room, the tune 
they are to learn is played over and over again on a 
little instrument called a bird-organ, the notes of 
which resemble as nearly as possible, those of the 
Bullfinch. For a time, perhaps, the moping birds 
will sit in silence, not knowing what to make of 
these proceedings, but after a while they will one by 
