Mxth N^uiB 



Devoted to the Interests of the Bird Fancier 



Volume I. 



JULY-AUGUST, 1909 



U{umber 4 



Heredity in Canaries. 



There is no more interesting, as 

 there is no more vexed question, not 

 only to the scientist but to the hum- 

 ble fancier, than the question of con- 

 tinued Ivinship or heredity. It is 

 interesting to record that the fan- 

 cier, perhaps unwittingly has in a 

 measure at least solved many of the 

 points, and has evolved a series of 

 factors, i. e. stock birds which he can 

 so blend as to approach almost any 

 results he aims at. 



The original canary was "green" 

 — in course of time a yellow race was 

 evolved. Many consider the yellow 

 as a sport or "freak." i. e., arising 

 some what suddenly, just as we now 

 see the yellow grass parakeet com- 

 ing into the common green series. 

 Davenport of the Carnegie Institute 

 at Washington, revives the theory ad- 

 vanced by Krukenberg that there is 

 no green pigment in the wild canary, 

 but the green is due to a yellow and 

 a dark pigment. The yellow pigment 

 is easily extracted by boiling in al- 

 cohol or ether. Green feathers so 

 treated become dark brown or black. 

 This ground color is not so easily 

 acted upon by reagents, is in fact, 

 fixed or basal. It would at first sight 

 appear that these changes are alto- 

 gether based upon admitted facts 

 associated with physiological chem- 

 istry. It is however well known that 

 there are morphological factors as- 

 sociated with color, which at least 

 suggest that these may be "types" 

 as well as pigments in the make up 

 of color birds. What fancier is there 

 who does not admit that in every 



variety of canary we have the two 

 colors, yellow and buff, and going 

 with these are two distinct forms of 

 feathers, which in a degree are at 

 least cor-related; "buff" feathers 

 possessing as more distinctive, length 

 and closeness, yellow on the other 

 hand giving color, brightness and 

 silkiness of textuhe. Canary-breed- 

 ers have very largely endorsed the 

 teachings of Russ. Russ maintains 

 that in color breeding, the choice of 

 the male is determinative, while the 

 female must be self-colored. Thus, 

 e. g., to produce crested offspring 

 with a high-yellow color, one selects 

 a male of this color, but a green 

 non-crested female. The more purely 

 thoroughbred the birds are the purer 

 their progeny. Let a yellow pair, no 

 matter of what origin, from green 

 or gray, produce young among which 

 is a yellow male, let this breed next 

 year, in a separate cage with a yellow 

 female; young are produced among 

 which is a yellow male. If such a 

 male be mated with a female, like- 

 wise bred, true for two generations, 

 their progeny will never produce 

 anything but yellow offspring. Daven- 

 port at the experimental station above 

 quoted does not confirm all the state- 

 ments advanced by Russ, indeed nei- 

 ther do many of our best experienced 

 breeders. Davenport found as the re- 

 sult of his experiments that when 

 self-greens are mated together, all of 

 the offspring are green. When self 

 yellows are mated together all of the 

 offspring are yellow. Yellow crossed 

 with green, invariably gave mottled 

 birds with varying proportions of 

 dark pigment on the yellow back 



