ON THE TREATMENT OF SONG BIRDS IN CONFINEMENT: The Aviary Inhabitants of the Aviary. CAGES: The Canary Cage-the Skylark's Cage- the Nightin- gale's Cage-the Goldfinch's Cage- the Linnet's Cage-the Blackbird's Cage-Breeding Cages - Moulting Cages-Net Cages-a School Cage. REAR- MEDIES. BIRDS OF CHAPTER I. 0F INTRODUCTORY. He sang of birds, the beautiful, the free, F all the many objects which a beneficent God has created, to adorn the earth, and minister to the wants and pleasures of man, Birds, we think, may be considered as the most beautiful and interesting. It is true that there is not a single member of the great world of animated nature but has in it much to excite our admiration and wonder in its internal structure-its outward adornments-its uses and adaptations we see such evident proofs of superhuman skill and wisdom. - such plain indications of benevolent design - that we must be dull and insensible indeed if we do not at once acknowledge that 'the Hand that made it' is, in truth,' divine.' But it is by Birds especially that our faculties of observation, and our powers of reflection, are stimulated and called into play. Everywhere, and every hour, we see and hear them; we cannot, if we would, help doing so they flit before us and around us, exhibiting the most exquisite 10 WHAT THE BIRDS TEACII. grace of form and motion, and surpassing beauty of plumage: they pour into our delighted ears songs of sweetest melody, and are the most obvious, as they are among the most welcome, of God's precious gifts to man. And what a lesson of entire dependence upon a superintending Providence do the Birds teach us! What assurances of fatherly care and protection to every downcast and desponding soul is there in the words of the Divine Teacher Behold the fowls of the air, they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them are ye not much better than they? All men of true piety have loved the Birds, and looked upon them as manifestations of the wisdom and goodness and fatherly care of the Almighty Creator: thus we read of the great German reformer, Luther, that with the birds of his native country he had established a strict intimacy, watching, smiling, and thus moralising over their habits: "That little fellow," he said of a bird going to roost, "has chosen his shelter, and is quietly rocking himself to sleep, without a care for to-morrow's lodging, calmly holding by his little twig, and leaving God to think for him." And the good English bishop, Jeremy Taylor, when he saw the Skylark soaring heavenward, said that 'it did rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel;' while quaint old Izaak Walton, when he listened to the song of the Nightingale, exclaimed, 'Lord, what music hast thou provided for the saints in heaven, when thou givest bad men such music on earth!' Birds, the free tenants of land, air, and ocean, Thus it is that James Montgomery describes the feathered creatures, with whose exquisite beauty of form and free airiness of motion our readers cannot fail to have been struck; but few perhaps have considered what it is which enables them to float so buoyantly upon the air-to skim the surface of the water-to soar aloft until they become almost invisible, and sink again to earth, with so little apparent VARIETY IN SIZE AND FORM. 11 effort few have thought sufficiently of the fine silky plumage which gives that richness as well as delicacy of effect so remarkable in most birds; of the complex and yet simple steering apparatus, and nice machinery of bones and muscles, and sinews and horny shafts, and webs, by which the motions of the creature are rendered so facile and truly graceful: of these we shall have to speak more at length presently. Let us now say a few words about the wonderful variety of size, and form, and habits, which only a cursory study of ornithology opens to our view. We behold the tiny Humming-bird, no bigger than a humble-bee, hovering over a flower, and inserting its long bill into the calyx in search of its sweet food; we see the lordly Eagle, with its spread wings, measuring perhaps eight feet across, soaring far above the mountains, and darting on its prey with a rush like that of an avalanche. The Ostrich, ten or twelve feet high, stalks over the sandy desert, and lays its eggs in a slight hollow to be hatched by the burning sun. In the depths of the tropical forest dwell the brighthued birds of the Parrot family, and many others, bedecked in plumes as glowing and various as the rainbow; and about the northern isles congregate vast flocks of aquatic birds, whose harsh notes seem a fit accompaniment to the sound of the breakers among the rocks, and the whistling of the winds around the heads of steep precipices. In our own green woods we have feathered songsters mostly of sober plumage, whose sweet melody amply compensates for their want of gay attire. In all places and situations we find Birds, beautiful Birds! They brave the rigours of the coldest climates, and the greatest heat of the tropics seems only to heighten their beauty, and sense of enjoyment. In anatomical structure they differ as greatly as they do in their habits and modes of life, although in all these respects there is, to a certain extent, a similarity between them; the differences being only such as are requisite for the performance of the work which they have to do-for all are workers- part of the industrial population of this our universe. Theirs is a very busy life, and it would be well for man if he performed the duties assigned to him with as much zeal and energy as do the Birds. When Mary Howitt sings 12 PLUMAGE OF BIRDS. How pleasant the life of a bird must be, she would by no means lead us to infer that the great pleasure of this state of existence consisted in idleness. All the work that the bird has to perform in the economy of nature is to it at once a duty and a pleasure, which is ever fresh and new, and therefore never cloys nor satiates, as human pleasures too often do. Whether pursuing the gilded fly or droning beetle through the air, or hunting among the bushes and green crops for the caterpillar, or 'tapping the hollow beech tree,' and exploring the crevices for larvæ, or hunting amid the roots of the grass for wire and other worms, or picking out the maggot from the bud, or in any other way helping to keep under the vast swarms of insect life, which but for the Birds would devour every green thing, and render the earth a desert incapable of furnishing sustenance for man;-whether doing this, or building their pretty nests and rearing their young broods, they always appear to be, and doubtless are, in a state of supreme enjoyment; they are at once working and playing, and are, as our readers no doubt think, most enviable and happy creatures. We will now turn our attention, for a few minutes, to that wherein consists so much of the beauty of birds - to the plumage or feathers. And, first, let us endeavour to answer the question- What is a feather? Chemists tell us that this, like hair, and wool, and the coverings of all animals, is composed of sulphur, iron, carbonate and phosphate of lime, and an oil, in which is the colouring principle. We need not trouble ourselves about the relative proportions of these component parts, but just remark that we have here earths and metals, such as go to form and hold together the great globe on which we live, and which minister most largely to the physical and intellectual wants of mankind. Rough, and black, and unsightly, are these in many of their forms and combinations, yet here we see them floating aloft in the air, white as the driven snow, or reflecting all the colours of the rainbow. And then the peculiar structure of the feather; how wonderful is it! |