FANCIERS’ 
JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 7 

tree, which they seldom do, but they cut off the lower limbs 
to the height of two feet, and sometimes even as high as 
three, which last they probably do by jumping up. ‘The 
limbs are cut off as smooth as if done by a sharp knife, and 
what is rather singular, all are cut at about an angle of forty- 
five degrees. At first we did not know who had been cut- 
ting off the limbs of our trees, but we soon discovered the 
authors of the mischief. Previous to that we had been their 
friends, and permitted them to go unharmed about the place, 
and even stay under the house, but when we saw the injury 
they had done our dwarf pear and dwarf apple trees, our 
friendship was turned to deadly hatred. We wished every 
rabbit in the neighborhood was dead, and since then we have 
killed all we could. At first we killed a-good many by rub- 
bing strychnine on large slices of sweet potatoes; but some 
only ate enough of the poison to make themselves very sick, 
and they told others to shun potatoes, until, finally, the rab- 
bits would not eat the sweet potatoes which we had prepared 
for them. 
Fortunately, we obtained a good cat, which began to catch 
the young growing rabbits for her kittens. After a little 
time, she caught those which were nearly full grown, and 
sometimes she has even caught full-grown rabbits. We now 
have two such cats, and haye seen but one rabbit on the place 
during the last six months. 
The rabbits cut off the limbs to get the buds, of which they 
are very fond. In the spring, when the leaves are partly 
grown, or just unfolding from the bud, rabbits consider them 
as a great delicacy. We have had more than one hundred 
dwarf pear trees killed by the rascals, beside much damage 
done to apple trees and young rose bushes. The buds and 
young leaves of these they seem to prefer, but for a change 
they sometimes eat those of the apricot and peach.—S. B. 
Buck.eEy, in Country Gentleman. 


+~~—_em > 
CANARY AND GOLDFINCH CROSS. 
THE age is immaterial, the main object being to get a hen 
from a strain which, from some inexplicable cause, has a 
tendency to throw birds more nearly allied to the canary in 
plumage than to the finch. By far the greater proportion 
of goldfinch mules are dark, self-colored birds, not half so 
bright in plumage as the finch himself; but where the canary 
shows itself, either by giving brilliancy of color to the nat- 
urally dark feathers of the self-colored bird, or by causing 
it to break into a beautifully variegated specimen, the mule 
becomes valuable according to the amount of brilliancy so 
bestowed, or the exactness of the markings; or if the mule 
be perfectly clear, a cock of good color—if it have a bright 
blaze on its face—the breeder may write himself down among 
the lucky men of the nineteenth century. I can give no 
opinion as to the best age for pairing canaries. Breeders 
never wait for breeding stock to reach any particular age. 
You cannot go far wrong by following nature, but put your 
birds up in the spring, about the time when they are begin- 
ning to make love out of doors. Young birds of last season 
will breed this year, and breeders are only too glad to get 
nests from them while in the heyday of their strength. I 
have read somewhere, I do not know where, that certain 
disparities in the ages of the sexes have a tendency to pro- 
duce more cocks or more hens in a nest, as the case may be, 
but I have never recorded any statistics, and seldom relate 
any experience but my own.—W. A. BiLaxksTon, in Journal 
of Horticulture. 

GOLD FISH IN AN AQUARIUM. 
‘‘T HAVE kept gold fish for two years or more. The first 
six months, or thereabouts, I lost eight fish by following the 
instructions of parties from whom I purchased. I then 
thought I would use my own judgment in the matter, and 
see if feeding would kill them, as I had been informed by 
the aforesaid dealer. I now have five gold fish, three min- 
nows, one crawfish or crab, and four turtles, in an aquarium 
30 by 16 inches, and 12 inches deep. I have on the bottom 
about two inches of fine lake sand, and scattered here and 
there stones built up or piled so as to formrun-ways. I feed 
them about twice a week with fresh beef, cut into small pieces 
and dropped on the water, when, quick as a trout after a fly, 
they will seize the pieces until satisfied. I have often seen 
them jump three inches above the water trying to catch a 
fly on the side of the glass. I keep a small plant of Calla 
in a pot standing in the water all the time. Some say it 
helps to keep the water pure. I change and renew the water 
twice a week during the winter, and three times during the 
summer.’’ 

~—_ oe + 
BUILDING UP A RACE. 
Frazur’s Magazine communicates a plan, from the pen of 
Mr. Galton, the author of ‘* Hereditary Genius,’’ for scien- 
tifically transmitting certain desirable qualities of mind and 
body combined, and afterwards accumulating them in the 
form of a distinct class or caste ; so that, after a given time, 
a superior race of men and women will be secured for the 
world’s direction and government, and matters on the earth 
be made to go at a better pace, and with far more profitable 
results to confiding humanity. The theory is simply the one 
of stirpiculture, which undeniably contains a living idea 
that is susceptible of being successfully developed. The 
writer in Frazer wants merely to make the rule of the best 
the rule of the earth. This would be a real aristocracy, the 
meaning of that much-abused word being only the rule of 
the best. Now we are ruled by those who, to say the least, 
are not wholly of the superior class. The majority of those 
who are at the top belong rightfully at the bottom. The 
writer wants to base the new experiment on facts that are 
well attested in regard to ancestry and virtuous character, 
and then to promote a strict intermarriage among such, 
none to go outside of the rank, or class, to which their ac- 
quired or inherited superiority entitles them. 
The plan proposed has some points so ingenious that they 
deserve more particular consideration. To begin with, it 
would have proper persons, in different localities, to pursue 
a thorough inquiry into the facts relative to human heredity, 
to be compared with facts in regard to heredity in lower 
animals, and even in plants; this merely to demonstrate, 
beyond the shadow of a question, that man is subject strictly 
to the same laws which govern the growth and improvement 
of the lower order of beings. Then would follow, by way 
of a convincing illustration, statistics of families that have 
long shown signs of improvement, and in consequence, have 
naturally come to set upon themselves a higher estimate 
than upon the average humans around them. It would be 
made to appear, from these facts, that such families cherish 
a higher and more consistent pride than others, so as to 
make them inclinéd of themselves to intermarry only within 
their own class. Upon such a plan, perfectly simple and 
natural as it is, and entirely regulated by a scientific law, 
the world could secure a race of poets, of orators, of states- 
men, and philosophers; or it could continually supply itself 
with wise and noble rulers, unselfish public servants, and a 
band of benevolent men and women whose united power in 
the state would be irresistible. 
