10 THE CANARY. 



well proportioned, and in color varying from the light 

 mealy to the clear green; some have crests. Their 

 singing qualities commend them to the world at 

 large ; hence the strife among the buyers from 

 Russia, Europe, and America to obtain the best, the 

 selected stock. It is hardly n,ecessary to say that we, 

 in America, are ready to pay well for this most 

 delightful merchandise, and in this case money not 

 only talks, it also sings, and you hear the songs 

 sweeter sounds than the jingle of all the gold Mother 

 Earth ever bore us. 



The Harz canary has a mellow voice with a good 

 variety of notes, and varying from the medium to 

 the louder and softer songs. That is, some singers 

 have voices of medium volume, while others have 

 louder songs, and still others have the lower, softer 

 voices. There is also quite a difference in the com- 

 pass of the voices, some singing higher and also 

 lower than others, and some voices are confined to 

 the high notes, while others have the contralto 

 register. That is, a canary voice may be a tenor, a 

 soprano, or a contralto ; or it may have some notes 

 in all these parts. 



The original canary, the forefather of all canaries, 

 wore a dull yellowish-green coll, and had a voice 

 like the sparrow. Man caught him, recognized the 

 possibility of making an improvement in him, and 

 kept right at the cultivation for some hundreds of 

 generations, a canary generation is one year, and 

 we see and hear the charming results. 



Being familiar with the demands of cultivated bird 



