64 The Canary. 



white, the blackish, and the chesnut, are the principal 

 varieties, and it is from their combination and from 

 their tints that we derive the numerous varieties that we 

 now possess." Others again would ascribe the dif- 

 ference to a difference of food, saying that some birds 

 fed entirely upon hemp-seed have been known to lose 

 their natural colour, and to become black, and that 

 such was proved to be the fact most conclusively by an 

 experiment made upon a nest of young bullfinches, who 

 grew up to be entirely black instead of their usual 

 varied plumage. These gentlemen forget, however^ 

 because it is not convenient to remember, that in the 

 case thus so conclusively cited the birds on the very 

 first moulting, after they had had different food, at once 

 regained their natural colour, and thus really demon- 

 strated the fallacy of the theory which they were at first 

 supposed to substantiate. 



That these and all similar notions have not the least 

 foundation in fact, it will be sufficient to observe that 

 the wild birds themselves vary almost as much as the 

 domestic, and yet have necessarily the same food, and 

 that in reality there is no bird in a domesticated state 

 whose food is less various than that of the canary in 

 every country where it is known. But even were 

 such not the case, we challenge the authors and sup- 

 porters of such a fanciful notion to produce a single 

 instance in either bird or beast where any particular 

 food has been known either to change white into yellow, 

 yellow into green, or green into grey, or grey into 

 chesnut, or produced stripes in one case and spots in 

 another. The idea is really too absurd, we think, to be 



