Your canary bird, if you have one, should be kept scrupulously clean, and the bottom of its cage should be strewed with clean sand every morning. It should also have fresh water every day, both for drinking and bathing, the latter being in a shallow vessel; in the moulting season a small bit of iron may be put in the water for drinking, but no other medicine should be given. Its food should be as simple as possible, and should consist principally of summer rape seed, that is, those small brown rape seeds which are produced by plants sown in spring, and are ripe in summer; and not those sown in autumn and reaped in spring, which are large and black. A little duck-weed in spring, lettuce leaves in summer, endive in autumn, and slices of sweet apple in winter, may be added; and occasionally a few poppy or canary seeds, and a very small quantity of bruised hemp seed: but this last should be given as a great treat, and only sparingly: all sugar, bread, and other delicacies, are very injurious. It must never be forgotten that birds kept in cages are in a most unnatural state, and that they require the greatest care to keep them in health. Three things should be especially attended to: viz. cleanliness, simple food, and abundance of fresh air. This last particular may appear strange to those who know that the canary bird, being a native of a warm climate, is easily injured by cold; so much so indeed, that in winter its cage should never be hung in a room without a fire. But, notwithstanding this, it should have the windows of the room open frequently when the sun shines, even in winter; and in summer it should be kept as much as possible in the open air. The poor little creature shows its own feeling on the subject indeed very distinctly; for, as soon as it is placed near an open window in the sunshine, it begins to bathe, and to preen its feathers, and then it sings gaily its loudest songs of joy, frequently fluttering its wings at the same time, as though from a sensation of intense enjoyment. The cage for a single canary bird should never be less than eight inches in diameter and a foot high, and should have sticks placed across it at different heights for the bird to perch on.
Parrots, macaws, and cockatoos thrive best on a pole with a stand at the bottom for sand, as their tail and wing feathers generally become ragged when they are kept in a cage. Some grey parrots and blue macaws are very apt to pull out their breast feathers; but this is the result of a disease brought on by eating too much meat. The same cause also brings on gout in the feet, and other complaints. All the parrot tribe are hard-beaked birds, and consequently not carnivorous: their food in their native country is grain and fruit, and their habits in this respect should always be kept in view in feeding them; for though birds in confinement are in an unnatural state, and require more indulgences than they would need if wild in the woods, yet they should never have food given to them which their organs are quite unfitted to digest. Parrots and other similar birds should therefore be fed as much as possible on ripe fruit, boiled wheat or Indian corn, and milk; or, if these articles be not attainable, bread or captain's biscuit soaked in boiling water, with enough milk added to enable the bird to drink, will be found the best substitute. Bird-fanciers use generally bread made without salt, and very well baked, crumbled into water and then slightly squeezed; but the birds get very thin if kept for a long time only on this diet, and require a little milk, though that is a food they certainly never can have in their natural state. Bechstein says that they will get fat on the seed of the safflower (Cárthamus tinctòrius), and indeed these seeds are called by the French graines de perroquets. Though the parrot tribe are not carnivorous, they are all very fond of a bone to pick; and I believe that they may be indulged with one occasionally, provided there is no fat and very little meat on it. Parrots should be supplied every day with clean water to wash, and their feet should be frequently examined and cleaned from any dirt that may be adhering to them.
Should you take a fancy to a pet monkey, most of the common kinds are kept chained to a pole on a stand, and fed like parrots; but marmozets, which are pretty little creatures, are very tender, and are generally kept in a cage like squirrels. They will eat animal food, and one that was at liberty is said to have snatched a gold fish out of the water, and devoured it. The most interesting circumstance relating to them is, however, their fondness for their young, which is nursed by both the male and female like a baby.
Gold and silver fish are very ornamental and suitable objects to keep in a lady's morning room. It is generally supposed that they are quite incapable of affection; but some that we have certainly knew me again when I came back after having been out of town; and one, which I call Goldy, and which we have had four or five years, will come and nibble my finger when I put it near him, or swim after a feather when I draw it gently along the surface of the water.
It is, however, very difficult to keep gold fish long in a room, particularly in a glass globe. When it is wished to do so, only two or three should be in one globe, and the water should be changed every day in winter, and twice a day in summer; the fish having no food but the animalcula which they find in the water, which should always be from a pond or river, as spring water is not only too cold, but often contains some mineral substance which is likely to prove injurious. When several fish are kept in a small space, the water should either be kept continually changing by a fountain, or in some other mode; or the fish should be fed with some farinaceous substance, but never with baker's bread, as it is decidedly injurious to them. I am told that the dealers in gold fish, who always keep a great number together in darkness, in a large tub or tank, feed them twice a day with boiled grits; other persons recommend crushed barley or oats: in France they use a kind of paste made of maize or Indian corn; and in America, I am told, they prefer brewer's grains, or a paste made of bran and flour. Whenever farinaceous food of any kind is used, it should be given in small quantities, and be quite fresh; the vessel in which the fish are kept being always cleaned thoroughly every day, to prevent the possibility of any of the food in a sour state remaining in it.
Though gold and silver fish certainly look best in a glass globe, I doubt whether they live so long in one as they will do in an opaque vessel. When I kept my fish in a large oblong china vase, I lost only one in five years; but in a glass globe I lost seven in about six months. I tried various modes of treatment, such as putting gravel in the water, and giving the fish duck-weed and pond-weed to shelter them from the sun; but I had still the mortification to see my fish die, and generally without any apparent cause. The first symptom was the fish appearing languid and unwilling to move; but in a few hours, it began to swim on one side, and when turned on the other side it instantly resumed its former position; shortly after, the tail drooped down, so as to throw the body into an angular position, and in the course of a few hours the poor fish was dead. It is true that the year in which these experiments were tried appears to have been decidedly unfavourable for gold fish, as a great many died, even in ponds, where they are generally much more healthy than when kept in rooms. In one instance, especially, nearly twenty died in the marble basin of a fountain, where fish had been kept for years with an average of not more than two or three deaths in a year. In many cases, the cause of death in gold fish is evidently a plant nearly allied to the green scum formed on stagnant water. This plant, which is called Achyla prolífera, consists principally of threads so exceedingly fine as to be imperceptible to the naked eye, but which take root in the body of the fish, as the mistletoe grows on the apple tree, and in time produce a soft downy substance like mould, that first appears on the gills and tail, but gradually covers the whole body of the fish. When this extraordinary disease, if it may be so called, is discovered in its first stages, it may be stopped by sprinkling salt on the back and sides of the fish; but the application appears to cause intense pain, as the fish, as soon as it feels the salt, darts from one side to the other of the vessel that contains it, and appears to be writhing with agony. This, however, soon goes off, and the fish appears quite restored, seldom requiring a second application.
The best way of keeping gold and silver fish is certainly in a pond in the garden; particularly if the situation be warm and exposed to the sun. It is necessary, however, if the pond be shallow, and the water clear, to have two or three bundles of faggots thrown into it, that the fish may find shade, when they wish it. Faggots are also very useful when it is wished to breed gold fish; as they afford both warmth and shelter, without which gold fish never produce young. When first hatched the gold fish is nearly black, but it gradually becomes streaked with gold or silver; the metallic