The housekeeper's companion

An old bird's claws will sometimes grow too long, so that it cannot perch comfortably, and they must be very carefully cut, taking care not to .draw blood, or to injure the bird in any way. Whenever possible, it is best to avoid catching the bird, especially if they are wild and fly about in alarm; but if taught to consider their owner as their friend, they will gradually submit; without much fluttering, to be taken hold of; and illness generally tames them sufficiently to make them quiet when they require to be taken out of the cage to be put into a bath. Early in the spring, when the cock birds begin to fight, the hens should be taken away, and kept apart in another cage till the pairs are put together in March. Some people allow their birds to choose their own mates; but a great deal of quarrelling takes place before this, and two or three gentlemen will sometime fix their affections on the same lady, and they will get injured in the combats that ensue; besides which, if it be an object to secure good colored birds, it is necessary to put those together whose colors contrast well: a mealy cock with a jonquil hen, or a green bird with a yellow partner. Handsomer birds are obtained by these selections than when two birds of the same color are paired; and two crested birds should never be put together, the young will probably be bald-headed. It is best to give an old wife to a young cock, and vice versa; and the birds of a family should never be mated together; the progeny will infallibly be weak and unhealthy if this is permitted. Two of our birds were accidentally paired, a brother and sister, and the result was that one of their children was blind and another deformed. For these reasons it is best not to leave the birds to choose for themselves, but to separate them before any attachment springs up between them. Cages sold as "breeding cages" have a wooden compartment at the top of one end for nest-boxes, and a wired-off partition underneath, into which the young birds may be put when it is desirable to separate them from their parents. There are some advantages in these cages, and the birds which are shy and like retirement prefer them to the open cages; the only objection to them is that they are inconveniently small when a large family is hatched, and that the nest-boxes are necessarily so high that the young birds sometimes fall, when they come out of the nest before they are fully fledged, and are injured thus. On this account we put nest-baskets into our cages, at a little distance from the floor, so that the young birds hop in and out easily; and if the old birds should entangle their feet in the nest (which they sometimes do if the claws are long and they fly out in a hurry), and the young birds are thrown out of it, they are not likely to be so much hurt as if they fell from the greater height. Breeding cages have compartments for the separate pairs, three in each, the centre space being kept for the young birds of each family, that they may be fed through the wires by the old birds, when they have left the nest, but cannot feed themselves. This space is necessary, too, to prevent quarrels, as the birds on each side of the wire partition will sometimes try to fight, and make furious assaults on their neighbors through the bars, or jealousies will arise to