on the Hooded Siskin.



49



It’s dirty there in that off street ; it savours at the very

least of rotten cabbages, and there’s nothing much worse, but

the oranges and bananas, piled amongst the vegetables on either

side of the steps leading up into the big shop, are fresh and

good. The shop when one enters is like a large scullery, or bare

kitchen, bare except for fifteen or sixteen cages hanging on the

walls.


In some there are yellow Canaries (which are not wild !)

commencing to build, some indeed are already sitting. Then,

in larger cages again, there are fluttering jumbles of West

African birds, Fire - finches, Lavender - finches, Weavers and

Whydahs, and also a Combassou or two.


But it is to three birds in three smaller cages that I am

chiefly attracted, after having ascertained that amongst the West

Africans there is nothing but what one can see any day in

London. Are they Canaries, these three? A variety or species

of Wild Canary that I have never seen ? or has the Santa Cruz

greengrocer been feeding the ordinary Wild Canaries on cayenne,

or has he been dipping their bodies in saffron dye, or have the

last rays of the setting-sun caught them to leave this golden-

orange tint all over. “ What bird is this ? ” I ask. “ Mr.

Canaria,” is the answer! Is the man laughing at the Senor

Ingles or is this his way of informing me that it is a Canary of

the male sex ?


Then, through an interpreter, I gather that it is ‘Mista’

or mixed; in other words a hybrid Canary. “ Mixed with

what?” “A Cardinal.” “A Cardinal? Surely not!” For

the birds look like Wild Canaries in form and size and carriage,

and indeed in voice too ; the ‘ sweet ’ of the Canary is unmistak¬

able.


But I am assured-—‘‘Si, si, Cardenal ; a misto Cardenal.”

“ Yes ! yes! a Cardinal.” “ What colour is the Cardinal ? ” I ask.

“ Red, all red, and a little black.” Can he mean a Virginian

Nightingale, a Red Cardinal ? It would seem so.


I purchase one of these ‘Mista Canaria’; I might go

further and say one of these mysterious Canaries, with a deter¬

mination to find out the father.



