Teach canaries to deserve the freedom of the room. It helps in many ways. Leave the cage door open; do not coax him out nor force him in except as a last resort. Rather let hunger take him back. He will learn quickly and enjoy flying about.
A metal cage with a movable floor is the one to choose. Wood invites vermin and harbors it distressingly. Hang where it is neither hot nor cold, away from draughts, but with air plenty. Feed regularly, but do not overfeed. Hemp seed are so fattening they must be given sparingly. The regular bird seed sold in packages is excellent if fresh. A dull appearance is against it; canary seed when not stale is shiny. Empty and fill the seed cup daily, clean the floor, and put down fresh gravel, red and white. Keep cuttlefish bone suspended in the cage, and put in daily some fresh bit of green. Lettuce will answer, but chickweed and peppergrass are better. A pod of Cayenne pepper is good in sharp weather. So is a little hard-boiled egg, lightly dusted with red pepper, or bread crumbs squeezed out of milk and similarly dusted. A droopy bird showing signs of diarrhea should have black-pepper tea to drink, else a strip of fat pork rolled in ground pepper hung where it can be pecked.
Fill the bath every morning. If a bird picks himself after bathing put a few drops of rose water or cologne in the bath. Bare spots from the picking should be rubbed very lightly with sulphur and butter, putting also a little under the wings and back of the neck. Ragged plumage may mean a hardened oil gland. It lies just at the root of the tail and furnishes oil for the coat. Look at it, blowing aside covering feathers. If swollen and inflamed, drop on warm, weak suds from a medicine dropper, dry very gently, and apply a little vaseline. Repeat daily until the gland frees itself of the cake.
Trim nails discreetly, holding to the light so as to miss the tiny vein in them. If cut, hold the bleeding foot a minute in tepid water, dry, and touch the cut with vaseline.
If breeding, separate the pair when brooding begins. Afterward let both feed the young. Provide soft food twice a day—bread crumbs soaked in milk, scraped apple, mashed hard-boiled egg yolk, in addition to seed and bird manna. As soon as it is safe move the whole family into a fresh, clean cage, and scald and fumigate the other. Mites, the bane of canaries, multiply amazingly. They would be invisible but for their blood color. Feeding by day, they quit their prey at night. Throw a sheet of Canton flannel over cages suspected, remove it quickly by lamplight, and plunge in boiling water. Mites will show on it after death. If they are plenty, shift to a clean cage at once and repeat the cloth treatment until all are destroyed. Infested cages should be, after scalding, drenched with gasolene and aired for a week. Scalding with bichloride is also effectual; it must be followed by a scalding in clear, boiling water and a fortnight of airing.
Parrots: If the parrot is for company get a gray African—they make the best talkers and are best tempered. For decoration get the scarlet-crested white fellows, or the yellow and green, or blue and scarlet and yellow. Treatment of either is the same; feed fruit, nuts, grain, a little meat, insects, bread, especially cornbread, and cereals cooked stiff. Parrots learn quickly to eat and drink with their owners. Coffee in moderation is good for them, but they must have water besides. Some thrive better for drinking milk; indeed, the creatures are almost uncannily human in many things. Let them bathe at discretion, provide also a dust bath. Have a roomy cage, a tall, branchy perch, and a hoop swing. Never tease nor tantalize; parrots are cross enough without; also jealous. Do not leave free in the room with a small child. Their beaks are cruelly sharp. Lacking insects, give small lumps of raw mutton fat. Keep everything about them very clean.
XII
IN EMERGENCIES
Chimney Blazes: Smother blazing chimneys by throwing salt, damp if possible, on the fire, and setting something flat against the chimney breast.
Blazing Fat: Throw on salt, sand, or ashes; water makes the flame fiercer. Prevent draughts if possible; keep doors and windows shut tight. Turn out oil or gas flames underneath, and keep everything inflammable away from the blaze.