The best time for pairing canaries is the middle of April. Either one male, and one or two females, are placed in a large cage, or many of both sexes are united in a room or aviary, having the advantage of a south aspect. Nests made of turned wood, or osiers, are given them, as straw ones are too easily torn. It is a good plan to place in the room or aviary slips of pine, which being cut in February do not lose their leaves. If a little enclosure of wire-gauze can be fixed over the window, where the birds can enjoy the fresh air, nothing will more effectually contribute to render the young healthy and robust.
Birds, which are to be paired for the first time, should be previously placed in the same cage for seven or eight days, in order to become acquainted and accustomed to live together. If two females are to be caged with one male, it is especially necessary that they should be together long enough to leave off quarrelling, and the pairing cage should be divided into two equal parts, communicating by a sliding door. This being done, a lively male and one of the females should be placed in the first division; as soon as she has laid, the male should be moved into the other division, the door of separation being shut; but as soon as the other has also laid, the door may be left open: the male will then visit the females alternately, and they will not trouble themselves about each other; but without these precautions jealousy would incline them to fight, and destroy each other’s eggs. When it is intended to place a great many females, double or treble the number of males, in a room or aviary, the latter should always be first paired with a single female, which will ever after remain the favourite; and it will only be when she is about to sit that he will pair with the others, and this is all the notice he will take of them, for afterwards he will only notice their young. It is from these mothers, however, that the most and the best birds are generally procured.
If the floor of the room or aviary is well covered with moss, little else need be added for making the nests, otherwise they should be supplied with the hair of cows and deer, hogs’ bristles, fine hay, lint, wool cut two or three inches long, paper shavings, and the like. That which is coarsest serves for the outside, and the softest and finest for the inside. If they have shrubs, traces of the natural instinct of the canary are soon observed in the nests which they construct without the help of the turner or basket weaver; but they are of an inelegant form, and the outside is not very carefully finished. The females alone, as is usual among birds, are the builders, the males only choosing the situation and bringing the materials. It is in the nest, where the female is in continual motion, that the pairing takes place; she invites the male by constant little chirpings, repeated more quickly the nearer she is to laying. Seven or eight days are generally reckoned from the first pairing to the laying of the first egg; the other eggs, whose number varies, without exceeding six, are laid successively every following day, and often at the same hour. The laying ended, pairing continues during the first days of incubation.
If the pairs agree, they must be left entirely to themselves, without endeavouring to use art to help nature, as many do. It is usual to take away the first egg and substitute an ivory one, which is repeated with the others to the last, preserving them in the mean time in a box filled with fine dry sand; they are afterwards restored all together to the nest to be hatched[55].
The females lay three or four times a year, from April till September; there are some even so prolific that moulting does not stop them. The eggs, of a sea-green colour, are at one end more or less spotted or marked with maroon or violet. The period of incubation is thirteen days.
If, owing to the weakness of the male or female, it is suspected that some of the eggs are barren, they should on the eighth day be examined by holding them lightly between the fingers in the sunshine or before a candle; the good ones will be already filled with blood-vessels, while the bad will continue clear, or even be already addled: these must be thrown away. It is rare for the male to sit in his turn during some hours of the day, the female seldom allowing it, for as soon as she has eaten she flies back to the nest. If the male gives up his place readily, so much the better; if not, she drives him away by force and by pecking him. She appears to know his want of skill in this employment.
The near discharge of a gun, a door slammed with violence, and other similar noises, will often kill the young in the shell; but their death happens generally through the fault of a bad sitter.
As soon as the young are hatched, a small jar is placed beside the usual feeding trough, which contains a quarter of a hard egg minced very fine, white and yellow together, with a bit of white bread steeped in water, and afterwards well pressed; another jar should contain rape seed which has been boiled, and then washed in fresh water, to remove all its acrimony. Some persons, instead of white bread, use biscuit, but this is unnecessary; what, on the contrary, is very essential, is to take care that this food does not turn sour, for it would then infallibly destroy the young nurslings. This food I find by experience to be the best.
Now is the time when the male assumes his important duties of nursing-father. These he fulfils indeed almost alone, in order to give his mate time to rest before a new sitting. When it is necessary to bring up the young by hand, a bit of white bread, or some biscuit, should be pounded very fine, and this powder should be mixed with well-bruised rape-seed. This composition serves, with a little yolk of egg and water, to make a paste, which is given to the young birds on a quill cut like a spoon; each nursling requires for a meal four beakfuls, well piled upon the quill, and these meals must not be fewer than ten or twelve a day.
The young should remain warmly covered by the mother as long as they continue unfledged[56]; that is to say, generally for twelve days: on the thirteenth day they begin to eat alone. In four weeks they may be placed in other cages of a sufficient size; but they must still for some weeks be fed with the above-mentioned paste, conjointly with the food of full-grown birds; for the sudden privation of this nourishment often occasions death, especially when moulting.