Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1901 — A SICK CANARY. [ARTICLE]

A SICK CANARY.

Quickly Cured by a Small Dote of Belladonna. Here is a story for bird levers. There had been diphtheria in the family; one child had had the disease, and the house mistress was congratulating herself that no one was the worse for it but the child who had taken the disease in the first place, when she noticed that one small member of the household seemed out of sorts. It wasthecanary. Thepoor little fellow drooped his head, half closed his eyes, and would not sing a note. If he made a sound at all it was a harsh, rasping noise, and he seemed in distress. He would grasp the bars of his cage with his bill and pull and pull upon them as if he were trying to pull them out “Poor little fellow!” said the canary’s mistress, after watching him for a time. “He certainly is ill, and 1 believe he has the diphtheria.” Thereupon making up her mind that she had discovered the trouble, she decided to apply remedies. She had in the house a preparation of bella donna that had been given to the sick child. She dropped a little of this into the water dish in the bird’s cage. The effect was almost immediate. In an hour the little fellow had brightened up, and in an hour and a half he was singing gayly as usual. Now, the writer of this little story is not a bird expert, and the miraculous effects of the medicifie may seem a little startling, but that is the story exactly as it came from the owner of the bird, a woman whose veracity is not to be doubted—N. Y. Times.