Green Canaries. 



243 



We might even suggest a third class, as the cross has been closely followed up with the 

 Belgian, and the strain is by no means uncommon in some localities. 



These Evenly-marked Cinnamons of the Yorkshire type are very beautiful, and are in every 

 respect subject to the rules affecting the Green-marked birds, to which they are, in many instances, 

 more closely related than might be supposed. 



And lastly there are the Greens, the Grass-Greens, as they are sometimes called, though 

 the name singularly fails to convey a correct idea of the colour, and we shall perhaps not 

 make matters much clearer if we say it is a very green green, and that in the purity of the 

 green and its freedom from any tinge of orange or yellow consists its value. These Greens, 

 which belong exclusively to the North, and certain forms of them to certain districts, 

 almost constitute a separate Colour family, and at one time no schedule issued in the North 

 would have been considered complete without a class for the popular " Green Canary" — a 

 somewhat vague definition, it must be admitted, and attaching it to no particular variety. As 

 regards shape it would have been difficult to assign some of them a definite place, as the 

 fanciers of the colour developed it on any base according to taste, and the bird appeared in 

 all shapes, from indifferent Belgian down to the nondescript type known as " Common," 

 though, in most instances, length, erect stand, smart build, and other characteristics of the 

 Yorkshire indicated, if not the probable source of the main stream, at all events the direction 

 in which it was wished to divert it. Now, the best school of Greens is so thoroughly 

 Yorkshire in its style that no more convenient place can be found for its representatives than 

 among the variety they most closely resemble and with which they are daily becoming more 

 intimately identified. For this reason we have attached this class to the Yorkshire, feeling 

 satisfied it is its proper place, and that, so affiliated, it is more likely to attain a high 

 position than when drifting about homeless and without a parish. It may be urged that 

 this disposal of the bird is somewhat arbitrary, but we think it is not more so than the 

 caprice which kept it so long floating about in the region of no man's land, measured 

 by no shape-standard but such as suited individual cases, while it does away with the 

 anomaly of a colour-bird ostensibly amenable to no law regulating its shape yet practically 

 subservient to as many laws as there are to be found varied tastes. We cannot see our way 

 clear to pronounce it a distinct variety on the ground of its colour, which is simply the basic 

 form of several varieties from which clear plumage has been gradually developed. If we accept 

 that theory as the foundation of its claim, then must we admit Green Scotch Fancies into 

 competition with any Green form simply because they are Green — a most absurd proceeding. 

 More in accordance with the principles of natural arrangement is it to classify under each 

 variety the different forms of colour in which that variety appears, and we think the Yorkshires 

 can safely take under their wing the erect " Grass-Greens," leaving other types to gravitate 

 to their proper level and find a home among their fellows. 



The colour-points of a Green Yorkshire are the purity and brilliancy of the green, its 

 uniform distribution, and the absence of black stripes in the feathers of the back. The flights 

 and tail-feathers are a glossy black, edged with a delicate margin of green. Nowhere must 

 there be seen any indications of running or breaking in the colour, which must be throughout 

 characteristic of a genuine dark self. We have made a class for the Yellow Greens only, but there 

 is no bar to exhibiting Buffs ; they are, however, usually so dull in colour as to be seldom 

 sufficiently attractive for show purposes. 



The principal thing to be kept in view in selecting breeding stock is to secure length, shape, 

 and style without coarseness — features not always procurable on demand, or good Yorkshires, like 



