150 



mixed or hybrid Canary, seems to follow the mother 

 rather than the male parent, for it looks as though an 

 ordinary wild Canary had been " dipped in a dye pot 

 of saffron orange." It resembles the Canary also "in 

 "form and size and carriage, and indeed in voice too ; 

 " the 'sweet' of the Canary is unmistakable," and the 

 Canary's song " is almost exactly reproduced." 



A circumstance attaches to these mules which can 

 almost be regarded as a peculiarity. I will quote Dr. 

 Hopkinson where in Vol. III. of Bird Notes he is 

 describing the aviaries of a lady in Funchal. Speaking 

 of a specimen of the Hooded Siskin he saw there, he 

 goes on to say: — "With him were some lovely mules 

 "bred between him and a hen common Canary, whose 

 " plumage distinctly followed the father, the red pre- 

 " dominating, while the black was represented by 

 "greyish tinged with green. More interesting still 

 " was a hybrid of the second generation, that is a cross 

 "between one ot these Hooded Siskin-Canary mules 

 "and a hen Canary, a grey brown bird with only a 

 "pale tawny orange patch on its breast." These 

 second generation mules it will be seen are like the 

 mules described by Mr. Astley. 



In the same paper Dr. Hopkinson incidentally 

 mentions that in these aviaries he saw Wild Canaries 

 on their nests. 



From all the above extracts one would be led to 

 think that the Wild Canary was easy to keep and a 

 free breeder in cages under «7^)/ conditions, but such an 

 opinion would require to be modified, for the lady in 

 question — the breeder of the hybrids — says, in a letter 

 she was good enough to write to me, " . . . . in my 

 " experience, and that of many others, they take very 

 " badly to cage life and seldom live long in confine- 

 " ment 7mless they have been brought up by hand. 

 "Those in my aviar}', with one exception, are birds 

 "that were thrown out of the nest when quite small 



