Hybrid Fringillidce.



355



1910, notified having bred from a four-year-old Linnet-Canary

mule paired to a hen Canary, five young birds. Later, a Mr. Reid

of the same district, together with other local fanciers, investigated

the matter, and agreed that no mistake had occurred. I think

nine young were bred that season, some being “dark,” others

variegated, and two nearly white. Several of these birds were

sent down to London, and Mr. Geo. E. Weston (to whom I am

much indebted for particularly bringing the case under my notice)

a well-known judge of cage-birds, exhibited them before a body

of metropolitan fanciers : various opinions were naturally ex¬

pressed as to their origin and incredulity ran rife. This gentle¬

man assured me that the paternal parent was unquestionably a

Linnet-Canary mule (an opinion shared by an old hybrid expert,

Mr. Vale, of Clapham), and although I was, unfortunately, unable

to see this bird owing to the fact that it was at the time again

paired up with his former mate, Mr. Weston very kindly obtained

again from the North three of the reputed £ Canary £ Linnet

birds for me to examine. One, a white bird, strangely peculiar

in shape and appearance, had only a few grizzled feathers on its

mantle to relieve the otherwise sickly hue of its plumage. It

was evidently a hen ; but the other two birds, which were males,

upon examination, exhibited distinct, although faint (as one

would expect in a bird § Canary and £ Linnet) cresentic bands

on their breast feathers; a significant fact, inasmuch as such

characters are unknown in the same feather tract of a pure green

Canary, but nearly always possessed by male Linnet mules and

by all normal male Linnets. This year, in Cage Birds, Sept. 2,


1911, Mr. Reid says that “ it may interest readers to know that

the Mules from Mules bred by Mr. Murray (five birds previously

referred to in 1911) this year, are bred from the same cock Linnet

Mule and hen Canary that produced the youngsters I have pre¬

viously written about, this year’s birds being bred before I sent

the old pair on to a well-known muling expert who now has them

in his possession, of which more anon ” ; therefore showing that

the pair are again fertile, which I understand has been effectually

confirmed by young having been produced since the pair has

been in the hands of another breeder.


Mr. Weston also showed me a bird reputed to be the off-



