A PRICELESS BIRD.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 2178, 27 June 1890, Page 5

A PRICELESS BIRD.

'* I own a singing bird that cannot be got from me with money," said the dealer, as he turned to a cage behind him. " He only sings one tune, but I can tell you a remarkable story about him. My daughter trained him herself when we lived in Germany, six years ago.

" She trained him to sing a song of her own improvisation. Of course it is much harder for a person to train a bird than for another bird to be the teacher, and it took her nearly six months before the little fellow could sing it through without making a mistake." Here the bi-d fancier whistled a few bars of a melody, which the bird took up and finished without a break. " Well, " continued the speaker, "at about that time I concluded to go to America, and leaving my daughter behind me — I was a widower — I sailed for tbe city of New York. A few weeks after landing I opened a store in Haarlem and sent for my daughter.

"By some unaccountable mishap, I failed to meet her, and the most careful inquiries threw no light on her whereabouts. I knew she must have sailed, but I could not learn the name of tha steamer, or anything about ber. At last, after vainly searching for her until I had spent all the money I had, I gave up in despair.

"One day I was walking leisurely dowu Mulberry Street, when I heard a small boy whistling this very air you have ju9t heard fche bird sing. I stopped him, and inquired where he had heard it, He replied that a young woman in the same tenement house where he lived had a pretty canary fchafc sang it.

" Need I say more ? I made him lead me there at once, and soon discovered fchat the owner of the bird was my lost daughter. The poor girl was miserably poor, and was trying to eke out a scanty subsistence by scrubbing offices, etc. She had come on another steamer than the one I had intended her to take, and having lost my address, had not been able to trace me any better than I had her."