History of the Canary. 5 



unfortunately, we have no corroborative testimony in the published results of any Board of Trade 

 inquiry of the day ; and the name of the vessel, with other important particulars, lies buried in the 

 Mediterranean. But we accept it as true, and as affording an easy solution of a question more or 

 less shrouded in mist. Great changes can be brought about in a century, and still greater in two 

 centuries ; and things must have progressed very favourably in the Canary way in the early history 

 of the bird, for we find in "The Gentleman's Recreation," an old work on "Hunting, Hawking, 

 Fowling, and Fishing," published in 1677, that at that date the Canaries in England were generally 

 imported from Germany and were of a green colour. There were also Germans living in London 

 who made a business of breeding Canaries, as was practised in their own country. 



It appears, however, that it was subsequent to this time that the different and distinct varieties 

 of the bird arose, though doubtless the foundation-stone of many a structure was already laid ; 

 for within fifty years after, we hear again of there being numerous varieties cultivated in Paris, 

 comprising many distinct colours, though most of these so-called varieties can only have been 

 pied birds differently marked. We are obliged to take giant strides over wide areas, since, 

 unfortunately, the links are wanting which might serve to connect the chain in anything like 

 continuity; and travelling onwards we find that about a century ago at least one fixed and 

 distinct variety had its home in London, with its established Society of breeders governed by 

 well-digested laws. That end of the cable we can moor ourselves to confidently ; and assuming 

 that the other end is lost at the bottom of the sea in the neighbourhood of Elba, we are content 

 to allow it to remain there in the face of the difficulties which attend our endeavours to pick it up 

 and identify it. 



But what do we find the bird to-day .' We have variations in shape and plumage as marked 

 as anything existing in the poultry or pigeon world, to each of which sections of the feathered 

 creation the same general principles of development we have briefly referred to apply. It is this 

 variation, with its endless ramifications, which renders the Canary an object of attraction to those 

 who merge its naturally engaging ways in other considerations, and makes it an object worthy 

 the attention of the naturalist as well as the fancier. Radiating from one common centre, the 

 castaways at Elba, are not less than ten separate and distinct varieties, each having strongly- 

 marked and fixed characteristics. These are the Norwich, the Cinnamon, the London Fancy, the 

 Lizard, the Belgian, the Scotch Fancy, the Yorkshire, the Crested, the Green, and the German ; 

 and each of these varieties is subdivided into many classes. It is a desire to produce each in 

 its kind in perfection that has led to the present extensive system of scientific breeding, and 

 our object is to assist by an intelligent enunciation of simple principles, and detailed account 

 of actual practice. As time has sped on, so has the desire for obtaining information, even of 

 matters respecting which it might at one day have been thought all knowledge could be 

 enclosed in a nut-shell ; and the stream of intelligent appreciation of many apparent trifles has 

 worked out for itself a channel broad and deep. 



We say apparent trifles ; but the smallest work of creative power is not a trifle, nor are 

 they triflers who give a careful attention to the many seeming insignificant works of nature with 

 which we are surrounded. He is not a trifler who makes the " short-lived insect of a day " a 

 life-long study, nor he who can find food for thought in contemplation of the lowest form of animal 

 organism ; any more than he who makes the study of the higher works of creation his constant 

 occupation. Nor is he a trifler who can read a page of the world's history in a fragment of rock 

 cropping up by the roadside, speaking to him with a tongue that cannot lie of that long ago 

 beginning when this planet of ours was created ; any more than he who extracts from the 

 bowels of the earth the treasures warehoused there for ages. Nor is he a trifler who carefully 



