34 



CANARY BIRDS. 



larity, may well excite our surprise. We see before us a 

 bird which, over the whole body, is of a uniformly pure 

 dark orange or a reddish-yellow, a colour which might be 

 described as a sort of red, and which, when w T e contrast it 

 with the bright-yellow bird of German breed, or, still more, 

 with the whitish-yellow Hartz-bird, will strike us forcibly 

 enough, especially when we are told that its colour is artifi- 

 cially produced by feeding the bird with red Cayenne- 

 pepper. This opens an entirely new world for our breeding- 

 process ; fancy, with its magic wand, calls up birds which 

 might be dyed, not only orange with Cayenne-pepper, but 

 blue, with indigo, green, with other colouring matters, like- 

 wise dark red, black, and, in short, in every possible hue ; 

 but even if we adhere to existing realities only we shall find 

 in them quite enough to marvel at. The English " colour" 

 canaries were sent by Mr. A. F. Wiener, of London (1877), 

 first to the exhibition in Berlin, and later, Messrs. Clark & 

 Co., of London, sent them to a very grand exhibition held by 

 the association " Ornis " (1879); on the first occasion 13 

 specimens were exhibited, and on the second, 60. These 

 birds, too, are divided into several under-breeds, the principal 

 of which is : The Norwich-bird — it resembles the Hartz-bird 

 in shape, but its build is somewhat more strong and thick- 

 set, and it is rather larger ; the colour, though it may be 

 varied in shade and design, will always be a rich yellow. 

 The orange-red shade is, as mentioned before, obtained by 

 feeding them with Cayenne-pepper. It is particularly to be 

 observed that the colouring, that is, the yellow which spreads 

 over the whole body, appears equally vivid on the lower 

 part of the latter ; the movements of the bird are vivacious, 

 and the song is performed with a laudable zeal, but is hardly 

 worth mentioning, at least when compared with the scien- 

 tific musical warbling of the Hartz-bird. The price is, in 

 general, from 30 to 40s. the pair, and 20 to 30s. for a 



