98 



that both ill manners and song they are perhaps the 

 most disagreeable creatnres one can get hold of in 

 return for one's hard-earned money. Further instances 

 of disappointment having dogged my footsteps when 

 on buying bent need not be given : suffice it to say 

 that out of about thirty such correspondents I have 

 met with only two that either had the bird I wanted or 

 really knew anything about it— and one of these two 

 was not indeed a vendor. 



At one of the Palace Shows I saw not long ago an 

 undersized ordinary dark bird with one or two buff 

 primary quills in the wing. It was in the Any Other 

 Variety class, and the catalogue gave it a special des- 

 cription as being a genuine wild bird which had been 

 taken from the nest at Las Palinas. And this is not 

 by any means the only " wild " canary I have seen 

 from the same source. Over and over again in the 

 houses of returned soldiers have I had proudly shewn 

 to me a common little buff German Canary — generally 

 a hen — which had been foisted on the credulous 

 owner as the real and identical Simon Pure by some 

 rascally bum-boatman at this port of call. 



When we turn to printed matter the same hazi- 

 ness meets us in too many directions, though tlie 

 earlier writers, in spite of the meagreness of their 

 descriptions, appear to be the most accurate, in so far 

 as unlike some of the moderns they do seem to have 

 had the real ancestral form in their mind's eye. As an 

 instance of the prevailing confusion, a book written 

 some few years ago by a clergyman gives us a very 

 indifferent coloured plate of what, if it is like anything 

 at all, is least unlike the Serinus fiaviventris , and 

 labels it as the origin of our domestic pet. More 

 recently still a writer has laid it down that the name 

 of Wild Canary belongs to the Grey-necked Serin 

 {S. caiiicollis) or " Cape Canary," and goes on to say in 

 definite terms that this bird was the original parent of 



