Farmers' Bulletin 1327. 



been protected and held in captivity they are capable of enduring a 

 surprising degree of cold when hardened to it. In England it is not 

 unusual to find them in outdoor aviaries throughout the year, and in 

 the comparatively mild climate of California they thrive under these 

 conditions. They seem able to establish themselves again in a wild 

 state under favorable circumstances. A brood of domestic canaries 

 released in 1909 on Midway Island, a sandy islet in the Hawaiian 

 group, had increased by 1914 until it was estimated that it numbered 



about 1,000 



HISTORY. 



The origin of the canary as a cage bird is as obscure as is the early 

 history of other domesticated animals. It seems probable that 

 captive canaries were first secured from the Canary Islands, a group 

 with which they have long been popularly associated. There are 

 in the Old World, however, two closely allied forms from which 



the domesticated ca- 

 nary may have come. 

 One of these, the bird 

 now recognized as the 

 "wild canary," is found 

 in the Canary Islands 

 (with the exception 

 of the islands of Fuer- 

 teventura and Lanza- 

 rote), Madeira, and 

 the Azores. This form 

 is illustrated in Figure 

 1. The other form, 

 the serin finch, 1 ranges 

 through southern Eu- 

 rope and northern 

 Africa, extending 

 eastward into Pales- 

 tine and Asia Minor. In a wild state these two forms are very 

 similar in color and to a novice are hardly distinguishable. 



If, as is supposed, the original supply of canaries came from the 

 Canary Islands, it may be considered doubtful that the stock thus 

 secured has furnished the ancestors of all our canaries. The slight 

 differences in color between the serin finch and the canary would 

 probably have passed unnoticed by early ornithologists and bird 

 lovers. With bird catching a widespread practice in middle and 

 southern Europe, the serin would often be made captive and be 

 accepted without question as a canary. In this way serins and wild 

 canaries may have been interbred until all distinguishable differences 

 were lost. 



The original canary, whether serin or true wild canary, in its 

 native haunt was much different in color from its modern pure-bred 

 descendant. The back of the wild bird is, in general, gray, tinged 

 with olive-green, especially on the rump, with dark shaft streaks on 



1 The scientific name of the serin is Serinus serinvs serinvs. The wild canary is known 

 ae Serinus s. eanarius. Both were first described by Linnaeus. 



Fig. 1. — Wild canary. 



