If the weather is mild you may put your birds together about the first of March. Those that are intended to be bred in a room had better be put in a cage for ten or twelve days to pair; they may pair before that time. Those who are not familiar with birds, may know that they are paired by seeing them feed each other. They may then be turned into the room, where there are nesting places provided for them. You need not be alarmed if they should fight a little, as those fighting birds generally breed the best. I have seen a female keep the male down in the bottom of the cage for a couple of days, and not allow him to get on a perch. She would sit on the top perch, stooping down, with her wings half stretched like a hawk, and if he should dare to come any nearer to her, by even getting on the lower perch, she would pounce on him like a Falcon on its prey, and knock him down to his former position at the bottom of the cage. At last he will get desperate, pluck up courage, and succeed in placing her in the situation that he was formerly, but he will be more merciful than she was, for he will not keep her there long; they will then soon make up matters and raise a large family.

Birds, intended to be paired in the spring, should not be kept together in the winter, as the male will not sing so well, and they will not breed so readily when the breeding season comes. When your birds begin to moult, their breeding, for the season, is over; they should then be separated and well fed, and your attention directed to the young.

In pairing birds that are of different colors, there are some rules to be observed, that you may have those colors pure and bright in your young birds. In pairing the male primitive green Canary (dark green above and yellow below) with a pure white or bright yellow female, there may be some of the brood like the male, and some like the female, or part mottled like both; the young will be strong and healthy, and the males good singers, as the dark green birds are generally excellent songsters; the colors, also, will be pure and bright. Many years ago I bred a pair of dark green Canaries; in the first brood there were two yellow birds; this rather surprised me until I thought of the cause: one of the old birds, or perhaps both, had been produced by yellow and green Canaries. If you wish to have pure yellow birds, pair a bright yellow male with the whitest hen you can procure; if mottled or splashed birds, pair a bright yellow male with a bright mottled female, or a mottled male with a pure white female.* The blending of the colors of these birds has arrived to such a height of late, and the bird-fanciers of Europe have got them by mixing, so striped, streaked, spotted, and speckled, that it must be very difficult for one poor little Canary bird to know another. But not only in color have they transmogrified them, (for as the Flat-head Indians are said to flatten the heads of their offspring,) so we might almost suppose that they stretched out the young of the Canary bird, for they have got some of them almost as long as two common birds. For some of those birds high prices are given, but it is mere fancy; the breed is not superior except, in the opinion of some, to the eye. The long birds are tender and delicate, and will not bear the vicissitudes of our climate like the others. And for song, I have had, and may have now, a stout, original green Canary, or a good, strong Yellow Bird that has been bred here, that you might hang in an attic all winter without fire, which will sing as sweet a note as any long bird I have ever heard in New York or Boston. Never pair birds of the same family together; if you wish to breed any of your young birds, exchange with some of your neighbors, or purchase mates for them. This close breeding degenerates the birds, and finally they become good for nothing.

* Do not pair two mottled or splashed birds, as the colors will be faint or mealy; or two Yellow Birds, except they be very large and pure, as they will degenerate in size and color; nor two crested birds, as the crests of some will be imperfect.