62 The Canary. 



marked, and of the colour required, at the German 

 store alluded to in the preceding chapter. He was not 

 altogether what I should have liked, being pied instead 

 of self-coloured like the hen we possessed. Still he 

 was a very handsome bird, very evenly marked on his 

 head, back, and wings, with a reddish fawn, with a 

 white body, set off with patches of golden yellow on his 

 cheeks, throat and rump. He was said to have been 

 bred in Yorkshire, which is very probable, as I have 

 since learned that Barnsley is known among dealers as 

 the place of all others where this particular variety is 

 bred. Although he had been only a few days among 

 the Germans, so apt was he at learning, and so reten- 

 tive his memory, that he acquired a considerable portion 

 of their peculiar song, which he sings most lustily with 

 his own at this present time. From the beauty and 

 excellence of his song, and the delicate hue of his 

 plumage, we named him Seraph and his wife Sylph, 

 and a charming and very singular variety of the canary 

 they are! Take them away from their well-known 

 brethren, and place them in a cage by themselves in 

 any drawing-room in England, and very few of our 

 lady visitors, we will venture to say, would ever dream 

 of their being of the same kith and kin as the yellow 

 specimen so familiar to us all. Whence, then, it may 

 naturally be asked, comes this great difference, and how 

 has it been brought about ? We candidly admit we do 

 not know. All that we can say is that the original 

 stock was of a uniform green, as we have already stated 

 in another chapter, and that the rest are in some way 

 the result of its domestication. A short glance, how- 



