The Evolution of 
the Canary. 
(ioi) 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
The Evolution of the Canary. 
No. 1. The Yorkshire Canary. 
By C. A. HOUSE. 
Author of “ The Canary Manual.” 
This is not a scientific article, nor one of a 
highly technical character, but a plain practi¬ 
cal one, in which the writer will endeavour to 
show how, by the constant and continual selec¬ 
tion of the highest and best forms by the 
breeder's art, the Yorkshire Canary of to-day 
has been evolved from the coarse, ungainly, 
slovenly bird which was known as a Yorkshire 
Canary some half a century or more ago. 
A Modern Invention. 
The breed named after the county of broad 
acres is not one of the oldest; in fact, it may 
almost be said to be one of the most modern, 
as the London Fancy, the Belgian, the Lizard, 
the Lancashire, and the Norwich were all known 
and, comparatively, speaking, largely bred be¬ 
fore ever the Yorkshire, as the Yorkshire, was 
known. 
How it first made its appearance is, like 
many other things, somewhat obscured by the 
lapse of years, and the fact that of the early 
days of the Canary Fancy, as a Fancy, we have 
few reliable records. This is not to be won¬ 
dered at when one considers that it was not 
until the twentieth century was out of its 
swaddling bands that we had a journal devoted 
solely to the chronicling of the doings of the 
breeders of Canaries and other Cage Birds. 
Some records of the past tell us that the York¬ 
shire was evolved from the crossing of the Lan¬ 
cashire and Norwich varieties, others that it is 
the result of a blend of the Lancashire and the 
Belgian, whilst others aver that the original 
Yorkshire was simply the wastrel Lancashire. 
As the Irishman said, “ There cannot be smoke 
without fire,” and for the purposes of this arti¬ 
cle we may, I think, take it that there is a 
modicum of truth in each of these divergent 
claims. 
The Yorkshire's Pedigree. 
In the ages that are gone the stronghold of 
the Yorkshire breed was the villages and towns 
immediately on the border of the two great 
Northern counties, and in those days, and those 
immediately preceding them, it seems very pos¬ 
sible that the Yorkshire and the Lancashire 
were practically one and the same bird; but the 
Yorkshiremen wishing, like the Lancastrians, to 
have a breed named after their own county, took 
the finest and slimmest of Lancashire birds, and, 
by careful selection and mating, made them 
somewhat different from the originals. The 
style was undoubtedly introduced from the Bel¬ 
gian, which also supplied the fine head and 
neck and neat whip tail, so characteristic to-day 
of the bird of grace and elegance. 
Not content with effecting improvements in 
the contour and carriage of their birds, the early 
Yorkshire breeders wanted to make them more 
attractive still, and thus resorted to the Norwich 
to obtain colour and quality of feather. In those 
days the Norwich, as it was naturally pro¬ 
duced, was far more a bird of colour than it is 
to-day, for the breeders of the rich-hued ones 
often dipped into the Lizard blood to improve 
both quality of feather and richness of colour. 
This would account for the shortening of the 
Yorkshire compared to its progenitor, the Lan¬ 
cashire. I cannot remember the bird itself more 
than thirty years back, but I have known and 
talked with fanciers who could speak of fifty 
and sixty years ago. 
From them, and from illustrations which I 
have seen of the early Yorkshires, that is, in 
the days when the breed had become estab¬ 
lished, it was a smaller bird than it is to-day. 
The Lancashire undoubtedly is a bolder, 
stronger, and more massive fellow than his 
ancestors of the time of which I write, and bears 
now the same relative shape and size to the 
modern Yorkshire that his forefathers did to the 
forerunners of the slim and graceful ones. 
Yorkshires of Former Days. 
Only a few years ago there passed to that 
bourne whence none return one of the oldest of 
the old Yorkshire breeders and exhibitors, Mrs. 
Luke Belk, of Dewsbury. Mrs. Belk had in her 
possession an illustration which I believe was the 
first ever produced, in a newspaper, of a York¬ 
shire Canary. The originals were a pair of 
Dirds owned by this lady’s husband, and 
had some renown as winners of copper kettles, 
which were the principal prizes in those days. 
These birds were much smaller than the York¬ 
shires of to-day. When I say smaller, I mean 
they were, less both in substance and length, 
and they were not so upright in carriage. Ex¬ 
cept that they were not so neat in the head, they 
were somewhat similar to the Border Fancy of 
to-day, although rather more robust and 
rotund. 
Judging from my conversations with Mrs. 
Belk, and my sight of the drawings of those 
old-time champions, I should say that in those 
days the Belgian had been used to get the fine¬ 
ness, but that the after introduction of the Nor- 
