The Canary. 13 



the Chaffinch, Yellow-hammer, and Bramble Pinch, almost or 

 altogether nil. 



Yarious foreign birds, such as the Grey and Green Singing 

 Finch, the Saffron Finch, the Blue or Indigo Finch, and the 

 Konpareil or Painted Pinch — le pape of the French dealers — 

 have also been paired with the Canary, with doubtful results, 

 though the union with the three former are said, on the 

 authority of Dr. Russ, of Berlin, a well-known ornithologist, 

 to have been productive of mules. 



The only crosses I ever attempted have been with the 

 Brown Linnet and the Greenfinch, from which I obtained 

 hybrids, and the Chaffinch and the Saffron Finch, from which 

 I had no result. I am not an admirer of mules, for I think 

 we can scarcely improve upon ]N'ature's handiwork, and j^ature 

 has set her face against such intermeddling with her arrange- 

 ments by stamping the offspring of these unnatural unions with 

 uniform sterility. 



Some Canaries are bad parents, and let brood after brood 

 of helpless nestlings die of starvation in the midst of plenty; 

 while others sit on the young ones so closely that they suffocate 

 them. Some have even been stigmatised as cannibals, but I 

 think unjustly, the fact being that the soft dead little bird 

 tore asunder when the old one was trying to remove it from 

 the nest. I believe that on the whole Canaries are far better 

 parents than they are often given credit for being, and that 

 a very large percentage of the failures that so mortify intending 

 breeders of these birds, are due to the presence of insects, 

 chiefly red mites, in the nest and cage, which by weakening 

 the young render them incapable of holding up their heads 

 to be fed, or so torment the old birds that they forsake the 

 nest. 



Prevention is always better than cure, so the intending 

 breeder must see that his birds and cages are thoroughly clean 

 and free from vermin, before he puts the former up; and, 

 indeed, I think it is good economy to make, or buy, new cages 



