ZOOI.OdlCAI. SOCIKTY lUI.l.KTIX 



THE MARSH GARDEN 

 Water-lilies and border line of marsh plants. 



THE WILD CANARY. 



WHEN one considers the obscurity which 

 beclouds the origin of many of our do- 

 mestic creatures, it is a great satis- 

 faction to know that the ancestry of one, at 

 least, is well established. The plain little wild 

 canary continues to exist abundantly in the iso- 

 lated groups of eastern Atlantic Islands, as 

 the Canaries, the Azores and Madeira, while 

 its domestic descendants, disguised in a great 

 variety of form and color, brighten the homes of 

 men in the four quarters of the earth. Five 

 specimens of this species have just been 

 brought to the Zoological Park by a collector 

 who secured them at Las Palmas, on Gran 

 Canaria. They are still in the sober brownish 

 garb of the young bird, but will later assume a 

 brighter plumage, in which the upper parts 

 are ash}' brown, with the cheeks, crown and 

 abdomen greenish yellow. 



Early in the sixteentli century, canaries were 

 first brought to Europe. They at once became 

 popular as cage birds, and the Germans soon 

 began the improvement of tlie song by select- 

 ive breeding, an art in which they continue 



unrivalled at the jjresent day. The breeding 

 of canaries was soon taken up in other coun- 

 tries and it was not long before certain defi- 

 nite varieties appeared. From then on, the 

 history of the canary parallels tliat of most 

 otlier domestic creatures, skillful breeders fix- 

 ing and accentuating slight variations, until wC' 

 have the great variety of canaries of modern 

 times. The English and Scotch devoted their 

 energies to the fixation of certain types of form 

 and color, rather than to quality of song, and 

 have produced among others the breeds known 

 as the Yorkshire, the Norwich, the Border 

 Fancy and the Scotch Fancy. 



Not least interesting among the color varie- 

 ties is the cinnamon. As is well known, many 

 species of European birds occasionally produce 

 albinistic, pink-eyed individuals of a pale 

 brownish color, and tiie wild canary is no ex- 

 ce])tion. These cinnamon birds seem to have 

 a marked propensity for variation and may 

 have had much to do with the production of 

 other color varieties. 



In this connection, Mr. .lohn Robson, an 

 English authority, has formulated an interest- 



