lOO 



Why such extraordinary confusion should exist 

 is hard to imagine. Gesner writing in 1585, Aldro- 

 vandus in 1610, and Willoughby's posthumous ///y/(?ry 

 of Birds published in 1667, all mention the Canary, 

 and give a more or less detailed account of it. For 

 instance, Willoughby distinctly connects the bird's 

 name with its original habitat, and correctly notes tlie 

 sexual differences as minutely as does the Catalogue 

 of the British Museum. Albin, Brisson, and BufFon 

 follow up in the iSth century with a complete appre- 

 ciation of the descent of the domesticated form from 

 the feral stock of the Canary Isles, and Adamson in 

 his Voyage die Senegal s?iy^ that "the Canary Serin, 

 which becomes quite white in France, is in TenerifFe of 

 nearly as deep a grey (sic) as the lyinnet." Hervieux, 

 who was the superintendent of the poultry yards and 

 aviaries of the then Duchesse de Berri, when enumer- 

 ating in 1709 the 29 varieties then known in cage life, 

 starts off with the "common grey canary " and then 

 goes through the whole scale of buffs, yellows, whites, 

 agates, &c. In addition to the above mentioned. 

 Turner, a still earlier author, alludes in 1544 to birds 

 " which the English call Canaries," while about the 

 same time the poet Gascoigne speaks of " Canara 

 Byrds" in his Coviplaint of Philomene. 



No mention is any where made of the bird shew- 

 ing any green in its coloration. On the contrary, while 

 Buffon alludes to its evidently close relationship to the 

 Serin Finch, he speaks of the latter as being green 

 and yellow, but always calls the Canary grey. What 

 was meant to be conveyed by the word grey can be 

 divined from Adamson's comparison with the Linnet. 



(To be continued). 



