BUYING and importing song birds, says the Scientific American, occupies the time and attention of several scores of people in New York, and as the distributing center of this peculiar trade, the city is often the home of considerable numbers of song birds gathered from all quarters of the globe. On the East side, in Fourth street, there are several remarkable aviaries where, without doubt, a study of one branch of ornithology can be pursued under conditions more favorable than elsewhere on this continent, and a visit to one of these bird conservatories of music is better than a trip to the fields or woods to listen to the songs of the wild warblers. The owner of the aviary is a German — more than probable from some little village in the Hartz Mountains, where bird-raising is the chief industry — and he not only feeds and tends his little birds with loving care, but teaches them to whistle and sing in tune to the accompaniment of an old reed organ or flute.

There are several large importing houses of song birds in New York, and in the busy season they employ from twenty to forty travelers who go back and forth from Europe to purchase the pick of the Canaries, Bullfinches and other European songsters. The consignments come chiefly from Germany and England. Nearly all the Canaries raised in the world for cage purposes come from these two countries, and most of the German exporting houses have distributing branches in New York. The birds are sent over by steamer in large consignments under the charge of an expert care-tender, who does nothing else but feed and doctor the little pets placed under his charge. One experienced man can take charge of five large crates, each one containing two hundred and ten cages of birds, or a little over a thousand in all. Sometimes during the rush season the care-tender has five hurricane deckers to watch, or fourteen hundred cages and birds to look after during the long hours of the days and nights.

That this work is not easy, any one who has had the privilege of looking after a single canary for a week can well understand. Feeding and watering over a thousand birds, and cleaning out their cages every day, makes up a routine of work on shipboard that begins at four o'clock in the morning and does not end until late in the afternoon. When seasickness makes life miserable for the passengers, the canaries are apt to be uncomfortable in their crowded quarters. Sometimes a disease known as "schnappen" breaks out among the Canaries at such times, and as this is fearfully contagious, it sweeps through the crowded bird quarters on shipboard and decimates the ranks at a terrible rate. Cases are known where only ten birds have survived out of an importation of eight hundred to a thousand, the disease performing its terrible work in a week's time. This is supposed to be caused as much by the over crowded and poorly ventilated condition of the birds' quarters as by the rolling of the ship. If you ask Fritz if his birds get seasick, he will answer emphatically " No!" but he will add softly to himself " schnappen." And in that word is conveyed much of meaning that the lay mind cannot appreciate.

When the imported birds arrive in port, they are hurried immediately to the importing houses, or to the different quiet aviaries in the German quarters, where experienced bird raisers take them in charge. It is at this latter place that one may make an inspection of the singers which are destined to carry song and delight into so many homes. Most of them are trained birds and they whistle and sing to perfection, and all that their German attendant has to do is to feed and water them properly. If disease breaks out among them, he is supposed to know just what to do, and in most instances he does prove an expert bird doctor.