The Natural History of Cage Birds: Their Management, Habits, Food, Diseases, Treatment, Breeding, and the Methods of Catching Them.Bechstein, Johann Matthäus
Science
The Natural History of Cage Birds: Their Management, Habits, Food, Diseases, Treatment, Breeding, and the Methods of Catching Them.
Bechstein, Johann Matthäus
Cage birds
third and fourth days; it will fly of itself at the sound of the bell
to the hand which holds the box; after this the fastening may be
loosened, and if one only move from the bird gradually, it will
fearlessly approach and perch on the hand. Should it escape, however,
it must be again confined and left without food for some hours. By
this means a wild bullfinch will in eight days become accustomed to
fly immediately to the hand, or wherever it hears the bell; in order
to finish its education, it is well to increase the difficulty of
getting at its food, by putting it in a small bag with a very little
opening; it must also only have rape seed in the cage, keeping the
hemp seed, which it likes best, for the hand or little bag. It may be
taught to drink out of one's mouth by keeping it without water for
five or six hours. It may even be accustomed to go and return,
provided the house is not too near a wood. The surest means of
preventing too long an absence is to put a female bullfinch in a cage
in the window, or to leave her in the room with her wing clipped; its
affection will soon bring it back to her, and it will certainly never
abandon her altogether.
Tame bullfinches have been known (says Buffon) to escape from the
aviary, and live at liberty in the woods for a whole year, and then
to recollect the voice of the person who had reared them, return to
her, never more to leave her. Others have been known, which when
forced to leave their first master, have died of grief. These birds
remember very well, and often too well, any one who has injured them.
One of them having been thrown down, with its cage, by some of the
lowest order of people, did not seem at first much disturbed by it,
but afterwards it would fall into convulsions as soon as it saw any
shabbily dressed person, and it died in one of these fits eight
months after the first accident.
A bullfinch, belonging to a lady often mentioned before, being
subject to very frightful dreams, which made it fall from its perch,
and beat itself in the cage, no sooner heard the affectionate voice
of its mistress than, notwithstanding the darkness of the night, it
became immediately tranquil, and re-ascended its perch to sleep
again. It was very fond of chickweed, and as soon as it perceived one
bringing it to him, however much care was taken to prevent its
finding it easily, it would show its joy by its actions and cries.
THE GREEN BIRD.
Loxia chloris, LINNÆUS; Le Verdier, BUFFON; Der Grünling,
BECHSTEIN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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