362 TlMEHRl. 
natural red, or rather orange colour, are shown. Mr. 
Tylor has been good enough to procure for me, from 
a friend of his who is a noted breeder of these canaries, 
the following particulars of the process employed : — 
" Commence," he writes, " the process three weeks 
" before the bird is likely to begin changing his plumage, 
" in order that he may become thoroughly accustomed to 
" the food, and his system may be well saturated with 
" it. At first mix in equal proportions cayenne, sweet 
" biscuit-powder, and hard-boiled yolk of egg. The egg 
" must be grated as fine as the other ingredients, or the 
" bird will pick it out and leave the cayenne. Take away 
" all the other food until the bird eats the cayenne readily, 
" and only give a very few seeds until he begins to 
" moult, when the red food should be given only, and 
" the proportion of cayenne raised to quite one-half. 
" Take care not to revert to ordinary food until the new 
" feathers are thoroughly grown. The small head-feathers 
" will not be quite opened till three weeks after the last 
" feather drops, though the period varies in length, and 
" probably would be more rapid in the tropics. I should 
" say that it takes about 6 ounces of cayenne pepper to 
" moult a canary. The cayenne pepper sold by grocers 
" is never bright enough in colour. The pepper used 
"for birds is called 'Natal pepper/"* Mr. Tylor 
adds that his friend has recently tried a special prepara- 
tion, called ' canaryper,' which is cayenne with the heat 
extracted from it, and has found it as efficacious as the 
hot pepper. 
This last information naturally suggested to me the 
* Is not this the ' Nepaul pepper ' recently introduced but now 
flourishing in this colony ? — E. F. i.T. 
