that birds scatter it about, and will only eat it if unavoidable. I admit that it is better to give the foreign visitor more turnip-sced in proportion to the others named, as they are reared upon it. Hemp should not be allowed, except as a bonne bouche. German paste, groats, bread and milk, and all the etceteras named as the "soft food" of the granivorous class, in addition. A fig, a bit of apple, the pips especially, will be esteemed as delicate morceaux by your companions. Be sparing, during incubation and rearing, of green food, and never give it during frost. The original canaries came from marshy lands: to their descendants baths are second nature; a hardy Briton will immerse himself in snow. Der canarienvogel ought to be supplied with a tepid bath in cold weather; but in neither case refuse the luxury for which their nature yearns. I heard of a merry little fellow allowed to roam about the room, (as all my birds do at proper times,) that, to remind his mistress of his "want," used to go through the evolutions of a wash and a splash in one of the chimney ornaments, its ridiculous flutterings ceasing when water was supplied: like the beggar and the barmecide, it gladly relinquished the empty vessel for the full one.

There is another "supply," upon which I would strenuously insist, its advantages being threefold; I allude to sand-from sea or river matters not. London is fortunately provided with it on sale, and of a kind especially adapted for finches and other small birds. For loxias, I added rough gravel; for it is not generally understood that when any imprisoned bird, including poultry, is seen to carry about a pebble, taking up and laying it down, he is engaged in measuring and weighing its fitness. This mark of intelligence was hinted to me, and I followed up my observations to the closest experiments, with a satisfactory assurance to myself and others, and no worse effect to those experimented upon, than a little loss of temper during the progress of "the sliding scale" principle. As soon as the proper size gravel was left in the cage, the withdrawal of choice was forgiven. It is one thing to keep birds for the amusement of the possessor only; in such case, an inanimate object might equally answer, where life is forgotten in self: it is another, and a better aim, to become an inquirer into Nature.

I was once, and lately, told, that a gentleman who really does love his birds, yet may not have had opportunities for the better understanding of their management, brought to London, en route home from abroad, a collecVOL. I. N. S.

tion-say about eighteen fine specimens. He requested, on his arrival, to have some sand provided: the day following found eleven birds dead! The narrator considered that deleterious matter had been accidentally mixed with the gravel. I am of opinion the deaths arose through necessary abstinence from the natural and only aid to digestion provided for these "tenants of land, air, and ocean."

In my walks, I frequently offer advice to the uneducated classes on two subjects relative to their charges-"no sand," "placed in draughts"—and, like all gratuitous offerings, it goes for nothing. I wish I could assert that to the ignorant these cruelties are alone confined.

In confinement, moulting is a disease; for birds on the wing, Nature supplies an abundance of food-a provision needful, when there is an extra demand on the strength. The welldoing of a cage-bird will greatly depend on previous wholesome feeding, and warmth during the malady. For a hardy canary, it will be sufficient to place the cage in a cheerful, warm situation, out of all draughts; for the more delicate German and Dutch birds, I would cover the cage, except in front, with brown paper, pasted on, or with wash-leather, or thin baize; and when this trying process is over, the winter will have set in, and the removal must be gradual-in some cases not done at all. I give less green food at the time-more lettuce and maw seeds. I do not find much advantage in iron-water-none in saffron. I sometimes add liquorice-root to the drinking vessel, or give toast and water. My chief dependence is on egg, roll-crumbs, and German paste, and on a vessel with milk. A partial moult is more remarkable with canaries and the new continent productions than with our own birds; it shows itself prior to the pairing season; the entire change takes place in autumn.

I do not think that canaries are more subject to diseases than other birds deprived of their natural freedom. I never had a bird with parasites, and I chiefly attribute their infesting cages to want of proper attention, or to a careless purchase. I shall be, at a future writing, tempted to give an excellent receipt for cure, if only for the sake of sparing suffering pets from the really cruel prescriptions in vogue. Cramps should be treated by administering a warm bath, and fits by a cold one; but as these arise from two causes quite opposed, the subject will be elsewhere treated of en grand.

The Dutch or Belgian canaries are held in great estimation by most amateurs; their perfection being, that while perching, the beak

H

and tail, in their propinquity, nearly form a circle. They have their merits, also. When German hen-birds are scarce, the Dutch lady is chosen, and she rarely fails in her duties, I think them, however, inferior in figure and song to a good German. Not so their countrymen! At least twelve Dutch and Belgian cities have "societies" in their honour, where premiums are given for "a shapely, well-complexioned, long-bodied bird;" the most influential of which is that of St. Cecilia, where the distinguished bird is entitled to the initials F.S.C. Classical associations connect themselves, also : in all the paintings of Gerard Dow, and Netscher, my subject is to be found; and it is stated by more than one competent authority, that the original cost of the birds therein depicted exceeded the original price of the paintings.

And what are the characteristics of this farfamed bird? Widely as his name has spread, he deserves his distinctions. With numerous virtues, and but few vices, he has won a corner in many a heart: grateful, loving and social, pert, saucy, and playful, he puts his little pipe in competition with mirth, laughter, and conversation. He will be heard; he has "a voice potential in the senate;" his endearing ways of recognising one beloved presence, of acknowledging "the goods the gods provide him," have a degree of character beyond mere animal instinct? Who has not a story to tell of "the pet of the family?"

The following anecdotes form but a portion of a collection :-A friend of mine had attached his bird by the usual process of "gifts," but he "respected words" still more; pending the toilet, "Dick" was indulged with conversations, and from "early morn to dewy eve" he enjoyed himself as canaries are wont to do in solitude-he ate, drank, and sung-and then the conversazione was renewed with his friend on his return home. One hapless day, some little visitors, intruding on Dick's presence, allowed him to escape; he found the sunshine and the flowers charming; the delinquents were alarmed; on and on in luxurious travelling he went; the household turned out; to coaxing or to trapping he was equally averse; farther and farther still he fled. His master was met by a simultaneous burst of sorrow, explanations, and excuses— -Dick was 66 nowhere!" One moment's withdrawal from the Babel of voices, and his really fond master proceeded to search out and to talk to the wanderer: he was shortly answered; gradually, though yet unseen, the solo became an animated duo; and in a short period the

canary had, from tree to tree, traversed a long avenue, and finally voluntarily entered the cage held by his owner. I regret to say, that his death proved the truth of the influence of the kindly and endearing effect of one voice upon his gratitude and affection. His friend left home the bird was removed from the usual room, hung up out of the way of all petting, but well kept; and he was found dead. Young, and without ailment-in truth, he pined away!

I now relate a family trait-canaries, father and son, the whole actors. The elder gentleman, aged twenty-one, was very infirm; and his strength had departed-his mandibles no longer obeyed his will. With every desire on the part of his kind mistress to smooth the difficulties of his venerable life, this was a case she could not possibly anticipate. Canary, fils, was observed to look carnestly and repeatedly at his papa. An ever-watchful care on the part of the lady induced her to put the two cages side by side, and soon it was observed that the younger bird (aged fifteen years) shelled seed, with which, through the double wires, he fed his parent. This story is not apocryphal; I have it from a friend of the lady to whom the birds belong, and hope to realise the promise made me of an introduction to her and to the modern "pious Eneas.”

With reference to the longevity of birds, I have been in company with the possessor of the very Methuselah of canaries he is, without mistake, twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. Some doubts having been started as to the fact, and suggestions thrown out as to the possibility of the original bird having died, and being replaced by some attendant to avert blame, the lady, on whose strict veracity there cannot be a second opinion, says the bird had been for a few times (a very few months) out of her sight; yet he was always in the charge of some of the family; and there is no reason to doubt that he is the same individual that has been her pet through this almost incredible number of years; some peculiarities of temper and disposition supplying the proof (if any was needed) that he is himself.

In the year 1839, there was a talking canary in London. The exhibitor was making a rapid fortune; but the greed of gain defeated itself— a few months afterwards, the poor bird died. This victim to an unnatural state of existence was a tame and beautiful bird, and did what few parrots can be induced to do-spoke with very little solicitation, and a few grains of hempseed. The exhibition took place several times daily; the room lighted with gas, even

when there was daylight. The words were— “Pretty Dick,” “Pretty Queen," "Save the Queen"-and these, with some other phrases, were pronounced as distinctly as they could have been by human organs, but with a sound totally different; the canary's, unlike a parrot's, voice, retained its own chirrup.

I have been told that at Kensington there is a canary ventriloquist. My informant, struck by the double sounds, looked about for a second cage; the lady of the house entering, stated the fact, and assured the astonished hearers that their mistake was one of daily occur

rence.

Had I not been eye-witness to a circumstance I am about to relate, I should fear to be its narrator. A pet, par excellence, of that daring, saucy, yet loving, kind, that endears itself to its owner, flew from its cage at the first opportunity, daily, into my hand; it fondled, nestled, fed, and bathed, in close familiarity nothing seemed to startle the little creature. I had another canary, not tame, and an object of perfect unconcern to his neighbour. He died. I had him on my extended hand, looking as I feel on seeing a dead bird. "Tiny" left his cage, fluttered towards me, retired, and never again could I induce him to renew his

love-tokens to become "mine own familiar friend!" I have not, though years have elapsed, been able to decide whether terror or jealousy affected the bird.

I shall close my subject by one observation : that there is no bird more easily treated, none more inclined to be grateful, than are many canaries; but few good songsters. To keep these imitative birds in the training necessary, let them have no inferior company until after the moult of the second year; and of whatever quality is your captive, treat him with such mercy as all that are endowed with life are entitled to at the hands of their captors.

The limits of my space do not permit of even a glance at Hybrids. The congeners of the present subject will take their own places, when particulars of the difficulties, as also the advantages, of cross-pairing shall be treated of; also aviary management, where "pluralities" may be permitted. And here I must say a word in favour of hen-birds; they are frequently carelessly treated-often discarded after "the season"-when self-interest at least should induce their possessors to give them simply fair treatment; a large store-cage, if numerous, and to be placed in a separate room from the singers.

CHAPTER II.-THE CHAMPION. THE Emperor Henry IV. of Germany, the husband of the falsely accused Empress, was one of the bravest and most unfortunate princes who ever sat upon a throne. He had succeeded his father, Henry the Black, in 1036, at the age of six years, and the diet had given to Agnes of Aquetaine the administration of the affairs of state during his minority. But the princes and barons of Germany feeling themselves humiliated by their subjection to a foreign female, revolted against the empire, and Otho Margrave of Saxony commenced that series of civil wars, in which the Emperor was destined to consume his life. Thus Henry IV. was always engaged in contests, first with his uncles, and then with his son; sometimes an emperor, sometimes a fugitive; to-day a proscriber, to-morrow proscribed; but always a "man of war and woe,"

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even in his greatest triumphs. After having deposed Pope Gregory VII-after having, in expiation of that sacrilege, crossed the Apennines on foot, his staff in his hand, like a mendicant, in the depth of winter-after having waited three days in the court of the Castle of Canassa without clothes, without fire, without food, till it pleased his highness to admit him into his presence, he kissed his feet, and swore on the cross to submit himself to his authority; for at this price alone would the Pope absolve the imperial penitent of the guilt of sacrilege; but the humiliation of the emperor displeased and disgusted the Lombards, who accused him of cowardice. Threatened by them with deposition, if he did not break the shameful league he had made with the Pope, he purchased peace with the Lombards by renouncing his submission to Gregory. His acceptance of these terms set him at variance with the German barons, who elected Rodolphe of Suabia in his place. Henry who had gone to Italy as a suppliant, returned to Germany a soldier,

though under the ban of the church, for his rival Rodolphe had received from Pope Gregory a crown of gold, in token of his investure by him of temporal dominion, and a bull invoking the malediction of heaven upon his enemy. Henry defeated and slew Rodolphe at the battle of Wolskieur, near Gera, after which he returned victorious and furious into Italy, bringing with him the Bishop Guibert, whom he had made Pope. This time it was for Gregory to tremble, who could not expect more mercy than he had shown to Henry. He shut himself up in Rome, and when the emperor appeared under the walls, sent a legate to make up the quarrel, by the offer of the investiture of the crown, and absolution and reconciliation to the church. Henry's only reply was the capture of the city. The Pope fled to the Castle of St. Angelo, where he was put in a state of blockade by Henry, who placed upon the Papal throne the Anti-Pope Guibert, from whose hand he received the imperial crown. He had scarcely done this before he received the annoying intelligence that the Saxons had elected in his room, Hermann, Count of Luxembourg. Henry repassed the Apennines, beat the Saxons, subdued Thuringia, and took Hermann prisoner, whom he permitted to live and die unknown in an obscure corner of his empire. He once more re-entered Italy, where he caused his son Conrad to be elected

King of the Romans. Believing he had settled peace on a firm basis, he came back to Germany, and turned his arms against the Bavarians and Suabians, who still remained in a state of revolt.

His son, whom he had just made King of the Romans, and who aspired to the empire, conspired at that time against his father, raised an army, and got Pope Urban II. to excommunicate him a second time. Henry upon this convoked the diet to Aix-la-Chapelle, laid open before it his paternal grief, and displayed the wounds of a heart wrung by filial ingratitude, and demanded that his second son, Henry, should be acknowledged for King of the Romans, in the place of his brother. In the midst of the sitting, he received a mysterious intimation that his presence was required at Cologne, where, he was told, an important secret would be made known to him. Henry quitted the diet in great haste; and found two of the noblest barons in the empire, Guthram de Falkenbourg and Walter de Than, waiting for him at the gates of his palace. The emperor invited them to enter with him, and led them into his chamber, when perceiving sadness and gloom painted on

their faces, he demanded "why they appeared so thoughtful and sorrowful ?"

"Because the majesty of the throne is in danger," replied Guthram, with some abrupt

ness.

"Who has endangered the throne?" demanded the emperor.

The Empress Praxida, your wife," said Guthram.

No other tidings would have made Henry of Germany turn pale, for he had only been married to the Empress two years, for whom he felt the tenderness of a parent, and the faithful love of a husband. His union with this angelic young woman had given him the only happy hours he had passed during his stormy and unfortunate life. He had not courage at this miserable moment even to ask what his wife had done, but was gathering the strength of a failing heart to do so, when Guthram broke the ominous silence, by saying, "she has done what we cannot pass by unnoticed, for the honour of the imperial throne, and we should deserve the name of traitors to our sovereign lord, if we should hesitate to make her misconduct known to him."

"What has she done?" again demanded the emperor, growing paler than before.

a son,

"In your absence she has encouraged the love of a young knight, and that so openly," replied Guthram, "that if she gives birth to however the people may rejoice in that event, your nobility will mourn; for though any master is good enough for the multitude, none but the noblest in the empire can command the highest nobles in the world, who will render homage to none but the son of an emperor."

Henry supported himself against the chair of state on which he leaned, or he would have fallen to the floor, for he remembered that only a month before, the empress had written to him to announce her maternal hopes, with the pleasure natural to a young woman about to become a mother.

"What has become of the knight?" asked the emperor.

"He quitted Cologne as suddenly as he entered it, without any person knowing from whence he came, or whither he is going. His country and name are secrets with which we are unacquainted, but you had better ask the empress, she perhaps can satisfy your majesty."

Very well," replied the emperor. Enter, gentlemen, that cabinet." Then the emperor summoned his chamberlain, and bade him

conduct the empress to his chamber. As soon as the emperor was alone, he threw himself into the chair, like a man who had lost his personal strength and mental firmness. He who had endured with unbending fortitude civil and foreign wars, the ban of the church, and the filial revolt, yielded to a doubt. His head, which had borne the weight of a crown for five-and-forty years, without bending beneath the burden, grew feeble under the weight of a suspicion, and hung down as if the hand of a giant was upon it. In a moment the man, who had scarcely passed his full meridian of intellect, forgot everything-empire, ban, malediction, revolt. He remembered nothing but his wife, the only human being who possessed his entire confidence, and who had deceived him more basely than any other creature had yet done. Much as he had experienced, throughout his long regnal life, of disloyalty and guile, tears fell from his eyes, for the rod of misfortune, like that of Moses, had struck the rock so forcibly, that it had drawn these drops from a source hitherto sealed up and barren.

The empress entered unseen, for her light step had not been heard by her unhappy husband. Fair, blooming, and blue-eyed, with a graceful form, of tall and slender proportions, this daughter of a northern clime approached her lord with a sweet smile, and with almost filial reverence united to conjugal affection, imprinted a chaste kiss on the troubled brow of her lord, who shrank and shuddered as if the touch of her rosy lips had been the fangs of a serpent.

"What is the matter, my lord?" asked the empress, in a tone of alarm.

"Woman,” replied the emperor, raising his head and showing her his tearful eyes, “you have seen me for four years carrying a heavy cross; you have seen my crown a crown of thorns; you have seen my face bathed in the sweat of toil, my brow in blood; but you never saw my eyelids moistened with tears. Well, behold me now-and see me weep!"

"And why do you weep, my dearly-loved lord?" replied the empress, in a tone of sorrowful inquiry.

reign master; but if any other man than your self had dared to utter such words, I would answer that he lied through envy or malice."

The emperor turned in the direction of his cabinet, and in a loud voice said, "Come in." The door opened, and Guthram de Falkenbourg and Walter de Than entered the imperial chamber. The empress, at the sight or her enemies, trembled all over. They advanced to the other side of the emperor's chair, and, holding up their hands, prepared to make their unjust accusation good upon the first sign he might give.

He motioned them to speak, and they were not slow to avail themselves of his permission.

"Sire," said they, "what we have told you is true; and we are ready to support the charge, at the peril of our bodies and souls, two against two, against any knights who may dare to dispute the truth of our impeachment of the empress."

"Do you hear what they say, madam ?—for it shall be done as they have demanded; and if, in a year and a day, you cannot find any knights to clear your fame by a victorious combat, you will be burned alive in the great square of Cologne, in the face of the people, and by the torch of the common hangman."

"My lord, I invoke the aid of God," replied the empress, "and I hope, by His grace, my truth and innocence will find vindicators, and will be completely established."

“Well, be it so," said the emperor; and he summoned his guards, to whose wardship he consigned his empress. By his command she was conveyed to the lowest apartment in the castle, which differed in nothing from a prison but in name.

She had been imprisoned nearly a twelvemonth, and had given birth to a son, condemned, like herself, to the pile. This babe she nourished at her own bosom, and reared with her own hands, like one of the wives of the people. None of her women paid her any attention or rendered her the smallest service, but Douce, Marchioness of Provence, who, having abandoned her own country, then the theatre of civil war, to seek an asylum at the court of her suzerain, had remained faithful to her mistress in her misfortunes. The empress, who had diligently exerted herself, by letters and promises, to procure champions for her ordeal by battle, had been hitherto completely unsuccessful. The renown of her accusers, their prowess in war and revengeful dispositions, had outweighed all her entreaties and largesses. Only three days of the time allowed by the emperor now remained, and the envoy