The Wild Canary The Emperor. 17 



CHAPTER III. 



THE WILD CANARY THE EMPEROR. 



]HE picture on the opposite page is an accurate 

 drawing, both as to form and colour, of a beau- 

 tiful wild canary now in our aviary, and 

 which, from his being brought from the island of 

 St. Helena, we call the Emperor. He has now 

 just got over his second autumnal moulting, and, to 

 a casual observer bears little resemblance to the ordi- 

 nary yellow domesticated bird, with which we are all 

 familiar. His beak and legs are shining black, and 

 much more powerful than those in the tame species, as 

 he will soon let you know if you take him in your 

 hand. His body also is much stouter, approaching 

 more the fulness of the linnet than the tapering 

 slenderness of the golden-yellow birds bred in England 

 and Belgium. No one, looking at him for the first 

 time, would suppose that the bright grass green of his 

 back, with darker wing coverts and tail, had any 

 alliance with any of the varieties commonly found at 

 home. Yet such is the case. All writers agree that 

 their natural colour is a greyish brown, merging into 

 yellowish green in the under parts of the body. " In 

 their native state," says a writer in the c Popular Cyclo- 

 paedia,' " they are of a dull and uniform green, and 

 exhibit none of that richness and variety which are so 

 much admired in the tame ones." Our bird is any- 

 thing but dull in his colours ; on the contrary, both the 

 green on his back and the yellow of his belly are of 



