I 12 



CASSELLS BOOK OF BIRDS. 



latter \vc imagined to be the youngest members of the party, and the yellow colour in all cases was 

 first visible upon their breasts. 



As regards the habits of the Canary when tamed, we quote Lenz, a naturalist well qualified to 

 furnish all the particulars that could possibly be desired : — " In order to ascertain where the finest 

 specimens could be obtained, I sought throughout the whole of Germany and its surrounding 

 countries, not omitting to place myself in correspondence with various distant portions of the world 

 and am now fully persuaded that the choicest birds are to be procured at Andreasdorf in the 

 Hartz Mountains, and the neighbouring villages. In the above-mentioned place almost every house 



THE TAME CANARY. 



has its breeding-room set apart .or their cultivation. Many families live entirely by this means, 

 and we were told by an official belonging to the place that Canaries are sold to the value of 

 12,000 rix-dollars during the course of the year from this village alone. It is quite unknown when 

 this business was first established in the Hartz Mountains, but that locality affords in plenty three 

 great requisites for its success : wood in such profusion that the cost of warming the Canaries' 

 apartments throughout the year is very trifling, abundance of rapeseed, and white bread, the corn for 

 which is grown with ease in the beautiful meadows that surround the villages. The songs of the birds 

 reared on this spot are very various, but in no case have we heard a really bad singer, while many 

 possess voices of unusual power and sweetness." 



In Andreasdorf a bird of unifoim pale yellow plumage, and without a crest, is much preferred, 

 because those that are uniformly tinted cannot be spoilt by irregular markings, and because the male 



