THE CASE OF CANARIES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 297, 11 August 1875, Page 2

THE CASE OF CANARIES.

A pair of canaries I give to your care: Don’t blind them with sunshine or starve them with air, Or leave them out late in the cold and the daritp, And then be surprised if they suffer from cramp ; Or open the window in all kind of Weathers Quite near to their cage till they puff out their feathers. The birds that are free fly to bush and to grot If the wind be too cold, or the sun is too hot. But these pretty captives depend on your aid, . In winter for warmth, and in summer for shade. When they chirrup, and ceaselessly hop to and fro, Some want or discomfort they’re trying to show ; When they scrape their bills sharply on perch or at wire, They’re asking for something they greatly desire; When they set every feather on end in a twinkling, With musical rustle like water a-sprinkling, In rain or in sunshine, with sharp call-like notes, They are begging for water to freshen their coats. Cage, purehee, and vessels keep all very clean, For fear of small insects —you know what I mean— They breed in their feathers, and leire them no rest; In buying them seed, choose the cleanest and best. I feed my canaries (excuse me the hint) On hemp and canary, rape, millet, and lint. I try them with all, till I find out their taste; The food they don’t core for they ecatterand waste; About their bright cages I hang a gay bower Of shepherd’s purse, chick weed, and groundsel in flower. At a root of ripe grass they will peck with much zest, For seeds and small pebbles their food to digest, But all should be ripe, and well seeded, and brown, Few leaves on the groundsel, but planty of down. In. summer I hang them out high in the shade About our hall-door by a partico made ; In spring, autumn, winter, a window they share, Where the blind is drawn down in the afternoon glare. This window, if open beneath them, wo eloae. Lest the cramp should cease hold of their poor little toes. A bath about, noontide on every mild day Will keep your small favourites healthy aid gajIn hot summer sunshine, some calico green, As a roof to their cage, makes a very good screen. On winter' nights cover from lamplight and cold ; Aqd they’ll sing in all weathers, and live to ba old— The Animal World.