330 

Swart Pet Departmen: 
8a All communications and contributions intended for this depart- 
ment should be addressed to HOWARD I. IRELAND, Concordville, 
Delaware County, Pa. 

(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
SKYE TERRIER “JACK.” 


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VWRRCACRS 4S URE RL 

Mr. Jos. M. WADE. 
My Dear Sir: I am pleased to learn that you like the 
dog so well. He is a general favorite, and in answer to 
your inquiries for more information about him, I would say 
that he is a thoroughbred, imported by Charles C. Spring, 
Esq., a gentleman of this city, and one of my personal 
friends; was sent from London by Mr. John Baker, and 
presented to me by Mr. Spring. He is considered the best 
ratter in this part of the State, and is now twenty-eight 
months old. I have many times been offered $50 for him; 
but aside from his being a gift, I would not part with him. 
He is probably better known in this city than any other 
dog. He is an attendant at church, parish meetings, city 
council, Masonic gatherings; in fact, everywhere his master 
is, and when I go to Boston or Providence, he will get in 
the rear car, if I do not discover him in time to prevent it, 
and when we get out of the city a bit, he finds me. He is 
well known at every one of the four depots in this city, and 
is a favorite wherever known. A. D. Warren. 
WORCESTER, Mass. 

DISEASES OF CANARIES. 
THE mortality which waits on Canaries from the moment 
they leave the shell, and even before they leave it, and which 
follows them so closely through life, but especially during 
the first few weeks of their existence, is one of the greatest 
causes of anxiety to the breeder. Under the cheering and 
encouraging influences of early spring, when animal and 
vegetable existence alike seem to be rousing from the sleep 
of winter, and making active preparation for the business 
of the year, when everything is anxious for a fresh start in 
the race for life, and the chills and disappointments of by- 
gone days are forgotten in hopeful anticipations of the 
future, it is not to be wondered at that the oft-repeated 
occupation of castle building and counting one’s chickens 
FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 

before they are hatched, should be indulged in, despite our 
experience of the fallacy of such a mode of procedure. 
When the breeder retires to his sanctum sanctorwm, and 
seated on the orthodox chair—an inverted show cage—views 
his score or more pairs of strong, healthy birds, all busily 
engaged in setting their houses in order, is it to be wondered 
at that he casts an eye to his large empty flight cages, and 
pictures to himself the not-far-distant time when he may 
expect to see them filled; and as he watches the smoke from 
his post-prandial pipe curling gracefully upwards, can he be 
blamed if he indulges ina dream of something hazy and 
indistinct looming in the future, assuming the shape of 
freshly-moulted young birds, making his name famous, and 
rewarding him for months of patient care and attention to 
his well-selected stock? This is the view of matters in 
March or April, but August sees the flight cages almost 
empty, and disappointment written over everything. 
How to account for it, is the question. His twenty hens 
have laid, upenss moderate calculation, upwards of three 
hundred eggs. “ A reasonable percentage have been empty, 
a few young birds have died in the shell, but the remainder 
have been duly ushered into existence fine, healthy, lusty 
little ‘‘raw gobbies,’? who were never tired of stretching 
their long necks and opening wide their red mouths to beg 
for food. Of these a large proportion neyer received a bite, 
but continued to beg most piteously till too weak even to 
raise their little heads in a mute appeal to their apparently 
unnatural mother. Perhaps paterfamilias, when he occa- 
sionally found the hen off the nest, would give them a 
mouthful on the sly, and it may be that the anxious breeder 
himself went the round of his cages as often as opportunity 
permitted, doing what he could with a bit of stick, and a 
little moistened yolk of hard-boiled egg, screwing up his 
mouth, and manufacturing most affectionate and enticing 
little squeaks to induce some half-starved morsel of skin and 
bone to consent to be fed. But it was only to put off the 
evil day. The end of such neglected nests must come, and 
come it does. 
Another portion would go on famously for five or six days, 
both parents being most assiduous in their attention, but at 
the end of that time, nest after nest of young ones as fat as 
moles would die from no neglect of their parents, but appar- 
ently killed by kindness. From six days to a fortnight old 
no young bird seemed free from the attack of some insidious 
enemy, and only a very few ultimately found their way into 
the roomy flight prepared with such careful hands in the 
early spring. 
Once there, and able to shift for themselves, surely all 
danger is past! But no, they still die, and anxious inqui- 
rers write to know the reason why, and to ask, is it possi- 
ble to avert the fate of these last, the small results of a 
season’s breeding. I can only say what Ido myself. When 
I find a young bird mopes, and sits with his head under his 
wing, and his feathers turned the wrong way, I blow the 
feathers from the breast. So long as that remains plump 
and round, I leave Nature to work out her own cure; but 
if the breast bone begins to show a sharp edge, and there is 
a falling away of flesh, I discharge the contents of the bow- 
els, by giving two or three good drops of castor oil, which 
operates quickly, and in the majority of instances the sick 
birds recover. As a precautionary measure, give as little 
soft food as possible, but grind or crush some white seed, 
and make them eat that, or nothing.—W. A. BLaxston, 
in Journal of Horticulture. 

