"Now be sure and not frighten it, children," said Aunt Mary as she left the room.

John and Lucy lifted the handkerchief from the cage, while Paul and Richard, with anxious eyes, stood by to get a sight of the piping bullfinch, of which they had heard so much.

This little bird had been presented to Aunt Mary by a German lady to whom she had been kind. It could whistle two or three tunes in a way to surprise all hearers. While the children were looking at it, it began to pipe.

"I know that tune," cried Richard. "It is 'Coming through the rye!'"

"And now the tune changes to 'Merrily every bosom boundeth,'" said Lucy. "What a wonderful little bird!"

"But how did it learn to whistle these tunes?" asked Paul.

Aunt Mary, coming in at that moment, explained to the children that in some of the small towns of Germany are persons who teach these little birds. It takes about a year for a bullfinch to learn a tune. But some of them learn more quickly than others: so it is with some children.

The birds are at first kept in a dark room; and when they are fed, a tune is played or whistled. They associate this tune with the act of feeding; and gradually seem to find out what is wanted of them.

The price of a bird that can pipe a tune in good style is from fifty to one hundred dollars. A good deal of time and trouble has to be spent in teaching the birds. Sometimes a child is employed to play a tune on a little hand-organ; and this the little bird learns after hearing it many times.

When the bullfinch learns well, he is praised and petted, and this he seems to enjoy very much. Even birds, you see, like to be praised and petted.