Little 
Bird Friends. 
1 HE BIRD WORLD. 
(‘63) 
he was quite mystified, and rather 
troubled. He held his wing spread 
out, and examined it thoroughly, his 
little brain working, and evidently 
thinking, “ Am I really myself ? Is this 
wing mine ? ” But he soon grew accus¬ 
tomed to his new grandeur, and now 
quite appreciates his own beauty. 
One By Himself. 
“Nap” is the only one of my birds 
that is not a gentleman. He is not 
vulgar, but he has no polished manners; 
indeed, he scarcely has any manners at 
all. He is brimful of health and spirits, 
and is very rough indeed in his play. 
He is, as a rule, good-tempered, and has 
never hurt any of the others, but every¬ 
thing he does is done in a boisterous, 
noisy way. He dashes across the cage, 
and perches on one of the swings so 
violently that it knocks up against the 
roof of the cage. He tumbles among 
the branches, and throws himself about 
so that sometimes he is hanging by one 
foot. But he enjoys everything, and 
laughs to himself with delight. I told 
you that sometimes he disturbs the Wax- 
bills when they are sitting cosily together 
on a perch. This is how he does it. 
“ Hello! little ones! ” he calls out, 
and plunges down from the top of the 
cage right upon them. Whether his 
claws or his wings touch them I could 
not say, but the three are scattered only, 
not hurt. “ Nap ” flies off with a laugh, 
and being so very plucky, the Waxbills 
are up again in the same place at once. 
I am very fond of “ Nap,” but I do 
think that slightly better manners would 
improve him. When I first put 
“ Radium ” into the Chateau, he felt 
nervous and shy, and clung to the cage 
wires looking rather awkward. All the 
birds stared at him; they had never 
seen anyone quite like him before. 
“ Nap ” hung on the wires near him 
and said, “ Well, and who are you, I 
should like to know; did anybody invite 
you in here ? ” gave a laugh and flew 
off, leaving “ Radium ” more uncom¬ 
fortable than before. 
A Great Contrast. 
“ David,” who could not possibly be 
anything but a perfect gentleman, hung 
on the wires, too, but not quite close to 
“ Radium.” I saw him distinctly bow 
his pretty head, and he said, “ Welcome 
to Chateau Chez-les-Oiseaux, I hope 
you will be happy here.” This made 
all the difference to “ Radium,” as you 
may imagine. The others all followed 
“ David’s ” lead, and very soon 
“ Radium ” felt quite at home. “ Nap ” 
is very destructive, and it is his fault 
that the fir branches so soon look 
shabby. He sets to work at once to 
pull off all the green leaves, or pine- 
needles. It takes a very long time, 
several weeks, as they are very tough, 
and he evidently 'dislikes the taste of tur¬ 
pentine about them. He throws them 
down at once; it is only done from the 
love of destroying things. He also tries 
what he can do with the rush nests, and 
one of these looks now as if a mouse had 
been nibbling at it. Although this nest 
was hooked firmly to the cage with long 
hooks, “ Nap ” managed to pull it down, 
and how he did laugh when it fell sud¬ 
denly on to the floor of the cage, 
startling some of the birds nearly out 
of their wits. 
Works Clumsily. 
Of course he weaves; but you will 
not be surprised to hear, from what you 
now know of his character, that he does 
not do it nearly so neatly as “Twiney.” 
He does not trouble himself about loose 
ends. I give him sometimes a strip 
of bass about half a yard long. He 
takes it by the extreme end and carries 
it up to his workshop. But he has no 
patience. He says to himself, “ I shall 
never have woven in this long bit if I am 
too particular.” So he stretches it 
across from one branch to another 
several inches off, using up the length of 
bass rapidly, but sometimes leaving such 
an awkward trap for a flying bird’s 
neck, that I have been obliged to destr.oy 
his work. One day I was very much 
amused with a funny little scene in which 
“ Toff ” played a' part. “ Toff ” and 
“ Opal ” were resting in their rush nest 
close to where “ Nap ” had his work¬ 
shop. He carried up a long strip of 
