Knowledge. 



With which is incorporated Hardwicke's Science Gossip, and the Illustrated Scientific News. 



A Monthly Record of Science. 



Conducted by Wilfred Mark Webb, F.L.S., and E. S. Grew, M.A. 



NOVEMBER, 1913. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A RACE OF WHITE 



CANARIES. 



By MAUD S. MARTIN. 



Some white canaries were exhibited before the 

 Linnean Society, in the year 1912, and the following 

 is an account of how the race was obtained, by Mrsi 

 Martin, who bred them. Professor Arthur Dendy, 

 F.R.S., who introduced the exhibit, has kindly 

 written the following lines by way of preface to 

 the article. 



Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Palmer, 

 of New Zealand, who had brought over to England 

 a considerable number of white canaries bred by 

 Mrs. Martin. At my suggestion Dr. Palmer exhibited 

 a pair of these very beautiful birds at a meeting of 

 the Linnean Society, where they aroused great 

 interest, and in response to a request for further 

 information as to how they had been obtained, 

 Mrs. Martin has very kindly written the following 

 account, which I feel sure will be welcomed by 

 readers of " KNOWLEDGE." " Mendelism " is so 

 much to the front nowadays that it is hardly necessary 

 to point out the great interest of Mrs. Martin's 

 observations. They afford an excellent illustration 

 of the wonderful power which the scientific study of 

 heredity has placed at the disposal of those who 

 wish to produce new and permanent varieties of 

 plants or animals. White canaries have, it is true, 

 occasionally been obtained as sports by previous 

 breeders, but I believe I am right in saying that no 

 one has hitherto succeeded in establishing a pure 

 white breed. That this has now been accomplished 



by an amateur, working alone in New Zealand, and 

 without any special scientific training, shows how 

 much may be expected in the future from the 

 application of Mendelian principles. Thanks to such 

 writers as Professor Bateson and Professor Punnett — 

 to mention only two of the best known workers in 

 this field — a knowledge of these principles is now 

 widely disseminated, and Mrs. Martin's work illus- 

 trates very clearly how easily and successfully such 

 knowledge can be put to practical use. 



Mrs. Martin is, of course, responsible not only 

 for the results obtained, but also for the form 

 in which those results are set forth ; but in justice 

 to her it should be stated that, being in New Zealand, 

 she has had no opportunity either of consulting with 

 specialists in the subject or of revising the proofs of 

 her paper. . D 



During the season of 1908-9, a pure white hen 

 canary (having a grey tick on the left cheek) was 

 hatched in Martinborough, Wellington, New Zealand, 

 being a sport from ordinary buff parents — its mother 

 being a buff hen with a black cap, and its father a 

 buff cock with a green crest and green wing mark. 

 In the same nest as the white sport were three other 

 birds, all buffs, more or less marked with green. All 

 the birds in this aviary were very much in-bred, and 

 many of them were very pale in colour, being a 

 creamy white in the nest feathers, but moulting 



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