The Canary Bird.

Cromwell Argus, Volume VI, Issue 287, 12 May 1875, Page 3

The Canary Bird.

The canary bird is a universal favorite in our households. Its pleasant song ways endear it to us. Before any knowledge can be given of its diseases certain rules must be observed, and I give them. Ist. Do not keep the bird in a newly-painted cage or room. 2nd. Do not hang the bird over a stove or grate containing a fire. 3rd. Do not let drafts blow upon your bird, or your room be over 80 degs/Fahrenheit. 4th. Do not wash the bottom of the cage, but scrape it with a knife. This will remove all dirt without chilling the bird. sth. Do not keep males and females in separate cages during the breeding season, (This is a common error of many.) When you have been feeding your bird on egg and bread, and food of like character, its abdomen becomes distended, its feathers fall out, the veins swell, the bird is languid, and will not sing. With draw all such food and give a little lettuce and canary seed alone, and put a rusty nail in its drinking water. Birds confined to a seed diet are troubled with costiveness, G-ive them a small piece of bread soaked in milk, or a blade of cabbage will remedy this evil. Your bird may be subject to epilepsy, and lie upon its back and pull its feathers out. Put your bird in a bath of colcl water two or three times and put it back in the cage. _ The water will probably cure it. Sometimes the bird has the asthma and wheezes or makes a cracking noise when breathing. Give it a piece of bread which has been soaked in water and squeezed out, arid then boiled in milk (a kind of pap), also a piece of lettuce or cabbage. Diarhoea is known by excessive discharges accompanied by pain. The dird does not sing, and it becomes morose. Give it bread in boiled milk, and put a rusty nail in its drinking water ; change the water twice a-week. Sometimes birds will not sing after molting. The bird forgets the notes, and upon being hung near a singer will start again. Mites infest the cage, the head and body of the bird ; in fact the whole surface of both may be alive with them. Take one ounce of corrosive sublimate, dissolve it in alcohol, and paint the cage.