CANARY CULTURE.
CANARIES are probably the smallest of any animal habitually bred and exhibited for profit. They are also the latest in date of any domesticated creature,—perhaps the only one the date of whose domestication is recorded. Yet they are so popular, that at the great shows in the autumn the number exhibited is usually over a thousand, and even now, in. summer, when the greater number of the best birds are confined for breeding, a fine collection of young canaries and "mules," under a year old, is being shown at the Westminster Aquarium. The extraordinary and permanent differences of colour and form acquired by these little birds, since they became the household pets of Europe, may be seen, perhaps, better in a small collection like this than in a large one, where the specimens of each kind are numbered by scores.
The chance by which a little greenish finch, from an insig- nificant group of islands on the West African trade route, has been adopted as the pet cage-bird of every European nation, is one of the accidents of domestication. Neither the plumage nor the song of the canary, in its wild state, are such as to mark it out specially for selection as a pet, though as com- pared with the tropical birds met further south along the West African coast, its linnet-like song is an echo of the bird-voices of the gardens of Europe. The Portuguese and Spaniah sailors, in their first adventurous voyages, were keenly on the watch to discover in the new countries some familiar bird or flower, and Columbus's journals are dotted with entries of the song of " river-sparrows " and "finches," "like those we hear in Spain." Italian voyagers are credited with being the first to bring the canary-birds to Europe. They are said to have been brought over early in the sixteenth century as part of the cargo of a vessel bound for Leghorn The ship was wrecked, and many of the birds were released, and flew to the nearest land, which happened to be the island of Elba. There they found a climate so like that of their native land, that they nested, and would have become naturalised. But the greater number were recaptured, and sold in the coast towns of Western Italy. There the tame canary was first established ; and it is said that its portrait may be found introduced into more than one of the works of old Italian painters, depicted in the sober colours in which it first made its appearance in the peninsula. The peculiar beauty of the pltimage was the soft merging of the green on the back into a beautiful warm grey beneath, a tint which may still be found in the "mules," and which seems to re- appear in the "cinnamon" and "lizard" canaries.
The splendid bright yellow of the modern birds was gained by carefully mating all those in which the yellow colour showed most conspicuously. But there are equally beautiful varieties which are neither green nor yellow, and yet have been established for nearly two centuries. To a naturalist the "permanence of the variations" should be almost as interesting as the "permanence of type." The " lizard " canaries, for example, are spangled all over the breast, back, and shoulders, with elegant spots of silver or golden tints. The " cinnamons " are of a most beautiful mixed tint of orange and mealy grey. Norwich canaries without crests are a brilliant yellow. Others are yellow or buff, with crests as regular as a crop of hair cut round the rim of a barber's basin. Yet most of the best known breeds of the present day existed as early as the end of the seventeenth century. Mr. G. Barnesby, in his work on the canary, mentions a book published in 1709, in which twenty-eight varieties are mentioned, comprising nearly all those known at the present day. When perfection of form has been attained, perfection of colour becomes the object of the canary exhibitor. Some of the little birds appear in orange plumage, which exceeds in depth and richness the colours of the orioles or tropical tanagers. "Buff" is the name by which this tint is known to "the fancy," who, like most specialists, attach a different set of meanings to words in common use, when applied to the mysteries of their craft. The means by which this beautiful tint is conveyed to the plumage of a pale, almost primrose- yellow, bird like the "Norwich plain" canary is so mechanical, that if it were not for the part played by Nature in trans- ferring pigment from food to feathers, it would deserve .classing with the manufacture of green carnations and blue roses by steeping the stems in dyed liquids. When about nine or ten weeks old, the young bird moults its first feathers completely, and acquires the plumage of adult canaryhood. At this period the owner devotes all the cosmetic experience acquired in a thousand generations of canary-colouring to arti- ficially darken and enrich the tint of the new feathers. Pro- bably there is no other creature in the world, not excluding the beauties of the East, which goes so thoroughly into training to gain a complexion, for the moult lasts for a couple of months, and during the whole time the cosmetic process is never neglected. It consists entirely in feeding the bird on food containing yellow colouring-matter, mainly from natural vegetable dyes. The first step is to induce it to eat the flowers of marigolds. Canaries, like most other finches, are fond of pulling to pieces and eating the petals of flowers, and there is seldom much difficulty in teaching them to eat the brilliant blossoms. No morsel of green leaves is allowed in the cage, but fresh marigolds are given as long as they will touch them, the ardent " fancier " being recommended to grow the flowers in relays in his garden. Saffron-cake and saffron-water form the solid and liquid accompaniments of the marigold flowers, to which cayenne-pepper is sometimes added. This gives an almost scarlet shade to some of the feathers, but sometimes Injures the health of the bird. But saffron seems perfectly harmless, and the canary eats and drinks the yellow-dyed food as gaily as the sparrows steal the saffron fibres from the crocuses themselves in the early spring. Various patent • " colourings" are also used, and are exhibited in front of the birds which have thrived on them like Mellin's food and Nestle's milk at a show of prize babies. Cochineal water is Perhaps the deepest in tint of any food given, but this does not impart the characteristic red which it produces as a dye. As the shades -of orange and yellow suffer from dust and dirt, canaries are most carefully bathed before exhibition. A shaving brush, warm water, and soft soap, are the usual means employed, and a practical hand will wash canaries by the dozen, at the rate of seven or eight minutes each, transferring each bird after its final douche and rubbing with a soft cloth, into the drying-cage, which stands before the fire. Precision and ." boldness of attack" are the qualities for a successful washer ; canaries, like babies, being apt to catch cold and • become miserable if the process be unduly prolonged. "Colour -feeding" is, on the whole, the most anxious and exciting pre- liminary to exhibition, and fully deserves the honour of a ,quotation from Epictetus, which Mr. Barnesby, in his authoritative work on the habits of his pets, has prefixed Ito his chapters on the subject. Singing canaries are treated on different principles. Their qualities are more suited for private appreciation than for exhibition, or contests like those held by the London bird- fanciers, between cock chaffinches, in which the bird wins which repeats its song the greatest number of times. Yet it is by its song, rather than its plumage, that the domes- ticated canary can rightly claim to be almost the best, as it is the most popular, of cage-birds. The Norwich and Yorkshire breeds are said to be the best songsters among the English varieties, if well taught. But neither of these are equal to the German birds, which, perhaps from living among a naturally musical race, have a correctness of ear and a memory of sound unrivalled by any other species of canary, or indeed by any bird at all. It is said that some German canaries have known and habitually reproduced the complete song of twenty-two other species of bird, including the nightingale, the skylark, the goldfinch, the woodlark, and the linnet. These German birds seldom live long in this country, but are bought at high prices to put among young canaries, to whom they act as tutors, singing, like Orpheus, till they die. Sometimes in the ecstacy of song these birds actually cause their own deaths,— bursting a blood-vessel by the extraordinary effort to compass some loud or unusual note.
It would be interesting to know whether the English canary is so completely domesticated as to have lost the power of returning to the wild life, and of rearing its young in sufficient numbers to make the experiment of reversion to the original form possible. Those that escape from cages do not seem happy in their freedom, even if the scene of their wanderings be English country gardens in summer time. Probably the winter would be too severe for them to survive in this country. But the result of releasing a few dozen cheap yellow canaries in their own islands would be worth observing by those European residents who now make the islands not only a winter resort, but a permanent home.
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