Performing Birds . 
195 
drawing of a small bird in a cage; the bird is busily 
employed in drawing up water in the manner above 
described. 
While on the subject of performing birds, it may not 
be uninteresting to note another kind of bird-training 
practised in Egypt, and described by John Leo, in an 
account of his visit to that country. 
“ There is,” he writes, “ also another kind of charmers or juglers, 
which keep certaine little birds in cages after the fashion of cupboords, 
which birds will reach unto any man with their beaks certaine 
skroules, containing either his good or evill successe in time to come. 
And whosoever desireth to know his fortune, must give the bird an 
half-penny; which shee taking in her bill, carrieth into a little boxe, 
and then comming forth againe, bringeth the said skroule in her beake. 
I my selfe had once a skroule of ill fortune given me, which although 
I little regarded, yet had I more unfortunate successe then was con¬ 
tained therein.” ( Purchas , vol. ii. p. 837.) 
A precisely similar exhibition to that by which the 
itinerant mountebank of Cairo beguiled John Leo of his 
coin may be seen at the present day in the London 
streets. 
The precise date of the introduction of the Canary into 
Europe is not known. Gesner, who wrote in 
1585, makes mention of this bird, and Aldro- 
vandus, in his Ornithology , printed at Frankfort, in 
1610, gives the first good description of it. Bolton, in 
his British Song Birds , says that probably the canary was 
not known in England till after the time of Aldrovandus, 
though Willoughby, in his History of Birds , tells us that 
they were common in his time. Some uncertainty also 
prevails as to what colour they were when first imported 
from their native country. Writers of the sixteenth 
century seem to concur in supposing them to be green 
and yellow, and to bear a near resemblance to our siskin. 
In a description of the Azores, by Linschoten, we 
read:— 
