97 



Zbc Milt) danarv). 



By W. Geo. CRKSWKr.r., M.D., F.Z.S. 



^ "yji^T first sight it would seem only natural to 

 Jt suppose that a fair proportion of the many 

 f"^ thousands of fanciers and others, who are 

 more or less conversant with Canaries in their 

 present highly evolved forms, would be quite familiar 

 with the original wild stock from which their favourites 

 have been derived. But such is not the case ; there is 

 hardly a bird living about which so much confusion 

 exists in the minds of the great mass of bird keepers. 

 And not only is it difficult to find a fancier who is 

 able to recognize a wild Canary when he sees it ; fewer 

 still can be found able to give anything like a des- 

 cription of it off hand beyond perhaps a vague and 

 scarcely correct statement that it is a " green bird." 



Many indeed of those who think they are com- 

 petent to do both prove to be much mistaken when 

 put to the test. For instance, a certain dealer who 

 from his very extensive operations ought to have 

 known something of the matter, once sold me a pair 

 of St. Helena Seedeaters, and in so many words des- 

 cribed them as the original Wild Canary. Shortly 

 afterwards another dealer who was more especially in 

 the way of the African trade, and who therefore 

 should have been still less likely to be mistaken, 

 advertized a bird under the same title. On my send- 

 ing for it he forwarded a bird with which I found I 

 was totally unacquainted, and which was afterwards 

 identified for me by one of the officials at the Natural 

 History Museum as the Meadow Saffron Finch {Sycalis 

 arvensis) from South America, a continent on which 

 no Serin at all is found. A short time afterwards I 

 answered an advertisement emanating from another 

 dealing quarter and received yet again a pair of these 

 birds, about which by the way little can be said, except 



