4 Canaries and Cage-Birds. 



The j-oung ones, as soon as they can take care of themselves, are sold by the score indis- 

 criminately, or by the pair ; the proceeds materially helping to fill the stocking-foot which 

 provides for a rain-day or the claims of Christmas. There are no breeding establishments in 

 this country where the work is carried on largely as a business pure and simple. It is one 

 of those things which, perhaps, presents no better balance-sheet than does a small poultry 

 establishment maintained expressly for a supply of eggs. Half the profit consists in the pleasure; 

 and the other half from money which might go in more questionable ways being saved in small 

 sums, by every investment in seed or other necessary, and returned in the lump just at a 

 time when it is useful. The occasional self-denial called into operation to minister to the 

 wants of creatures not able to provide for themselves, and the lessons of kindness thus taught, 

 must also be written down on the credit side of the account. Few hobbies pay, except in the 

 hands of larger capitalists than the breeder of Canaries for the London market, but it is from 

 these cottage homes that the main supply of song-birds is drawn. The higher class birds 

 among the more valuable varieties hardly come under this category, our remarks applying, 

 generally, to the Canary vulgaris. 



Of comparatively recent admission into the ranks of domesticated birds, the Canary has, 

 under man's care and skill, within little more than a couple of centuries branched off into a 

 number of distinct varieties, differing in colour and form so widely from the original stock, that 

 it is difficult to realise the fact that they proceed, one and all, from the same origin, and are 

 simply divergences from one common type. The majority of them have existed for many 

 years, but how they arose we know not. It is easy to guess at the mode in which some of 

 them have been obtained, but when one comes to experiment in the way of crossing, it will be 

 found that the results are generally very far from what was anticipated ; and the tendency to fly 

 back, as it were, to the early forms is manifested so strongly, especially in those breeds which are 

 the farthest from the original type, that the hopes and wishes of the breeder to produce some fresh 

 intermediate form are generally set at nought. As an illustration of this may be instanced the 

 fact that the variety known as the London Fancy, one of the oldest and purest branches of the 

 family tree, when crossed with other Canaries, loses immediately its characteristic markings ; and at 

 present there is nothing whatever to show a tendency in any variety to retain permanently its 

 peculiar characteristics without careful supervision. 



Our bird, then, has a history, and one of ancient date too. There is a charm in its antiquity 

 which smacks strongly of respectability. There is probably little doubt that the species came 

 originally from the islands whose name it bears : at the present day, however, it is found in a wild 

 state in other localities, the majority of the wild Canaries which come to England being captured in 

 the island of St. Helena ; it is found also in Madeira, and, we believe, also in parts of Africa. We 

 have not had any opportunities of comparing specimens from these diff"erent localities, so that we 

 cannot speak positively as to their being identical ; but the bird is so easily acclimatised in any 

 temperate or sub-tropical region, and has been so largely captured and exported from the islands 

 in which it is now found, that we doubt not it is thriving in many other spots to which it has 

 been introduced. 



Its first appearance in Europe seems to have been about the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century, in consequence of the loss of a vessel containing numbers of these little birds as 

 merchandise near the island of Elba, where they were set at liberty. After a time, however, they 

 were recaptured, and in this way were introduced as song-birds into Italy. The Germans then 

 appear to have soon taken them up, bred them largely in confinement, and exported them to 

 other countries. The story is simple enough and quite within the bounds of probability, though, 



