Food.—When wild the bullfinch does not often suffer from the failure of its food; for it eats pine and fir seeds, the fruit of the ash and maple, corn, all kinds of berries, the buds of the oak, beech, and pear trees, and even linseed, millet, rape, and nettle seed.
In the house those which run about may be fed on the universal paste, and, for a change, rape seed may be added; those which are taught must be fed only on poppy seed, with a little hemp seed, and now and then a little biscuit without spice. It has been remarked that those which are fed entirely on rape seed soaked in water live much longer, and are more healthy. The hemp seed is too heating, sooner or later blinds them, and always brings on a decline. A little green food, such as lettuce, endive, chickweed, water-cresses, a little apple, particularly the kernels, the berries of the service tree, and the like, is agreeable and salutary to them.
Breeding.—These tenderly affectionate birds can hardly live when separated from one another. They incessantly repeat their call with a languishing note, and continually caress. They can sometimes be made to breed in the house, like the canary, but their eggs are rarely fruitful. In the wild state they breed twice every year, each time laying from three to six eggs, of a bluish white, spotted with violet and brown at the large end. Their nest, which they build in the most retired part of a wood, or in a solitary quickset hedge, is constructed with little skill, of twigs which are covered with moss. The young ones are hatched in fifteen days. Those which are to be taught must be taken from the nest when the feathers of the tail begin to grow; and must be fed only on rape seed soaked in water and mixed with white bread; eggs would kill them or make them blind. Their plumage is then of a dark ash-color, with the wings and tail blackish-brown; the males may be known at first by their reddish breast; so that when these only are wished to be reared they may be chosen in the nest, for the females are not so beautiful, nor so easily taught.
Although they do not warble before they can feed themselves, one need not wait for this to begin their instruction,[[6]] for it will succeed better, if one may say so, when infused with their food; since experience proves that they learn those airs more quickly, and remember them better, which they have been taught just after eating. It has been observed several times, that these birds, like the parrots, are never more attentive than during digestion. Nine months of regular and continued instruction are necessary before the bird acquires what amateurs call firmness, for if one ceases before this time, they spoil the air, by suppressing or displacing the different parts, and they often forget it entirely at their first moulting. In general it is a good thing to separate them from the other birds, even after they are perfect; because, owing to their great quickness in learning, they would spoil the air entirely by introducing wrong passages; they must be helped to continue the song when they stop, and the lesson must always be repeated whilst they are moulting, otherwise they will become mere chatterers, which would be doubly vexatious after having had much trouble in teaching them.
Diseases.—Those bullfinches which are caught in a snare or net are rarely ill, and may be preserved for eight years or more; but those reared from the nest are subject to many diseases, caused by their not having their natural food, or by those injurious delicacies which are always lavished on favorite birds; they rarely live more than six years. The surest means of preserving them healthy for a long time, is to give them neither sweets nor tit-bits of any kind, scrupulously to confine their food to rape seed, adding now and then a very little hemp seed to please them, and a good deal of the green food before mentioned. The bottom of their cages should be covered with river sand, as the bird there finds some stones which aid the functions of the stomach. Their most frequent diseases are moulting, costiveness, diarrhœa, epilepsy, grief, and melancholy, in which case they are quite silent, and remain immovable, unless the cause can be discovered. They must not be given any delicacy, and must be fed entirely on soaked rape seed. A clove in their water, proper food, and particularly a good deal of refreshing green food, enables them to pass the moulting time in good health.
| [5] | However difficult this pairing may be, it sometimes succeeds very well. A bullfinch and female canary once produced five young ones, which died on a journey which they could not bear. Their large beak, and the blackish down with which they were covered, showed that they were more like their father than mother.—Translator. |
| [6] | I do not recommend the employment of bird organs for instructing birds, because they are rarely accurate, and their notes are harsh and discordant; for bullfinches repeat the sounds exactly as they hear them, whether harsh or false, according to the instrument used. The good and pure whistling of a man of taste is far preferable; the bird repeats it in a soft, flute-like tone. When one cannot whistle well it is better to use a flageolet.—Translator. |