HISTORY. 



7 



in the capture and sale of those birds a new source of gain 

 which, it must be owned, they worked to excess. They also 

 successfully commenced to breed the birds, and, from Italy, 

 the breed spread to countries of a more northerly situation, 

 especially to the Tyrol and to other parts of Germany. Thus 

 the breeding and, afterwards, the trade in these birds began 

 to nourish in the liveliest manner. As early as the latter 

 part of the last century, there existed at Tmst 1 an associa- 

 tion which every year after the breeding time despatched 

 buyers to the canary-breeders in Germany and Switzerland 

 in order to buy np the young birds — a practice that con- 

 tinues to the present day. The birds collected in this 

 fashion were then hawked about and traded with as an 

 article of commerce throughout Germany ; and even as far 

 back as this they were exported in small quantities to Russia, 

 Constantinople, Egypt, and to England where they sold at 

 fifteen shillings per head ; a similar trade later on being 

 developed in the Black Forest and in other parts of Germany. 

 Keeping pace with the progress in the breeding, the trade 

 naturally extended, and steadily increased. 



It has, of late, been repeatedly attempted to establish the 

 theory that the bird that has become acclimatised to our 

 regions is by no means descended from the species which, 

 even now, inhabits the Canary Isles in a state of freedom, 

 but that it owes its origin to a continuous cross-breeding 

 between some greenish-yellow varieties of the finch-species 

 which can easily be tamed, and which are domesticated in 

 our country and in other parts of the world ; for although, 

 since the commencement of the 18th century, the books 

 treating of the canary-bird have become more and more 

 numerous, yet the precise epoch in which the transition from 

 the green hue to the yellow took place cannot be ascertained 



1 Small place on the Tyrol. 



