They must be fed on rape seed soaked in water and the crumb of white bread; it is very easy to rear them and preserve them healthy till the time of moulting, but then numbers perish, particularly if not quickly relieved by being given meal-worms and ants’ eggs, or any other animal food, as bread boiled in or soaked in boiled milk.
Chaffinches that have been reared with care become very familiar, and sing at command, or when one approaches their cage in a friendly manner. If they are wished to learn quickly and accurately, they should be kept in an obscure corner of the room, and only hung up at the windows in May; this is the surest way to prevent their learning any thing imperfect. By these means chaffinches that have been taken full grown have forgotten their former song and adopted a better. The whole artifice consists in keeping the bird in such retirement as will remove everything that might distract it when listening to a fine songster, and take away the wish to sing itself.
There have been examples of chaffinches pairing with female canaries, and it has been said with a female yellowhammer. The distinction between wood and garden chaffinches is unfounded, at least as to species; the eggs of both are of the same whitish pink colour.
Diseases.—The disorders to which the chaffinch is most subject are the obstruction of the rump gland[37] and diarrhœa. To cure this an old nail or a little saffron should be put in the water.
When the scales on the feet become too large, the upper ones must be cut skilfully with a sharp knife, or else the bird would either lose the use of his limbs or become gouty; but this operation must be performed with great care.
Blindness also is not uncommon, particularly where they are fed much on hemp seed. This does not, however, injure their song, and as it comes on gradually, it does not prevent their finding their food and hopping about the perches. By means of proper care a chaffinch may be preserved twenty years.
Mode of Taking.—With good baits the chaffinch may easily be drawn within the area or decoy from Michaelmas to Martinmas, and in spring throughout March. Those that remain the winter, or return early in the year, may be taken in a net baited with oats.
bird-catchers use in spring lures and lime twigs, and the sport lasts as long as the time of flight, which begins at daybreak and ends at nine o’olock. These birds employ the rest of the day in seeking food in the fields, in resting, and singing. In the same manner are taken linnets, goldfinches, siskins, yellowhammers, and bullfinches.
Some make use of the excessive jealousy of the males to procure those whose song is very superior. As soon as a bird-catcher who likes this way discovers a fine songster wild, he immediately seeks another male that is in the habit of often repeating its natural cry, fink, fink, ties his wings, and fastens to his tail a little forked stick, half a finger long, well covered with bird-lime; thus prepared, he fastens him under the tree on which the one he is watching is perched; this no sooner sees and hears the false rival than he becomes enraged, pounces on him like a bird of prey, and is caught with the bird-lime; his attack is often so violent that sometimes the bird of call is killed by the stroke of its adversary. The following is a surer method:—a soft, narrow leather band is fastened round a male, to which is attached a string a foot long, fastened by a peg, which allows it but a short space to range. This bird, as we have already said, is called, in bird-catchers’ language, a percher. A circle of bird-lime is made just beyond its reach, and a cage with a chaffinch, accustomed to sing either in the shade or exposed, is placed under a neighbouring bush; as soon as this last begins his song, which should be a natural one, not any learned in confinement, the chaffinch that is to be procured darts from the tree like an arrow on the percher, which it mistakes for the songster, and remains fixed by the bird-lime. This new prisoner will sing the same year if it is caught before Whitsuntide: if after, it will never sing, but will die, evidently from grief at being separated from its female and young ones. A bird-catcher, cruel as he is stupid, who, without the least reflection, only thinks of gratifying his ridiculous passion for bird-catching, may in an hour deprive ten or twelve females of their beloved companions, their protectors, and numerous young ones of their father, purveyor, and support: such thoughtless cruelty is, alas! only too common in Germany. As soon as the young chaffinches have left the nest, the bird-catchers are very active in discovering the places where at noon they are accustomed to drink; there they set perches covered with bird-lime, and by this means many of these little unwary creatures are taken. However little memory one of these birds may have, it is capable of learning a good song, and being more robust than those brought up from the nest, bird-dealers make a good deal of them. They collect a great many, being sure that some will succeed amongst them.
Attractive Qualities.—The first of these is undoubtedly the song of the bird; but our amateurs are not less attentive to the different notes that express its passions and wants. The note of tenderness, and which is also thought to indicate a change of weather, is trif, trif: its call, or the rallying note it makes use of on its passage, and which so often draws it within the snares of our bird-catchers, is ïak, ïak, repeated several times; the cry fink, fink, which it often repeats, and from which its German name is derived, appears, if we may so call it, to be mechanical and involuntary. But what makes it appear to still more advantage among other birds are its clear and trilling tones, that seem almost to approach to words; in fact, its warbling is less a song than a kind of battement, to make use of a French word, and is expressed in German by the word schlag (trill), which is used to designate its song as well as the nightingale’e. Some chaffinches have two, three, four, and even five different battemens, each consisting of several strains, and lasting several minutes. This bird is so great a favourite in Germany, that not a single tone of its voice has escaped the experienced ears of our bird-fanciers. They have observed its nicest shades, and are continually endeavouring to improve and perfect it. I confess I am myself one of its warmest admirers; I have constantly around me the best songsters of its species, and if I liked I could write a good sized volume on all the details of its music, but I will confine myself to that which bears most on this subject.