The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-03-16
TEACHING cANAR,Es.
Sole Occupation of Seven Hundred Fami-
lies In q Small Town of Saxony.
. FamI-


Sole Occupation OF Seven Hundred FamI-
lies In a Small Town of saxony.
In a small town called st. Andreas.
berg (Saxony) some 700 families are en-
tirely engaged in the task of rearing
and educating good canary singers A
great proportion of these singers is
sent abroad, far or near--to London, to
Australia and to the United States,
where one single firm ships 100. 900 birds
each year These canaries are the in
ferior birds, the schreir, as they are
called in Germany, on account of their
notes These schreir, which are bought
from 20 to so cents in the Harz, are sold
for 50, So or 81 in America. The best
birds are kept in Germany, where they
are called hohlroller A good hohl-
roller cannot be had under So or $40 Tin
the Harz), and twenty and twenty-five
dollars are no unusual prices But
such birds are certainly splendid sing
ers. The Germans have quite num-
Der of words, each of which applies to
different sort of tune. or information;
the heulrolie is in minor key; king
erolle applies to silver tones; koller to
warbling which reminds of the muir
muir of water; gluchrolle is similar to
the nightingale's notes, and one may
say that every detail of the canary's
song has been named, and that for
every one there is a standard of per-
lection which the expert fancier knows
perfectly we'll The song of all cana
ries is not exactly similar; each race
has its special points, and while the
one is great or heulrolle for instance,
it is weak on gluchrolle, while the case
is reversed with another race.
OF course, singing is natural feat
ure with canaries, but the influence of
education is considerable. The educa-
tional curriculum begins IN May for
the young canaries, and they are, as
soon as possible, separated from their
parents Education is all in this: Keep
the young bird from hearing any but
excellent singers Some fifteen or
twenty young canaries are put in one
cage with an older bird, an especially
good singer. and he teaches them the
elements, they try to initiate him, and
hence comes his beneficial influence.
In August each of the young birds is
put in small cage. and kept in the
immediate vicinity of the cage of the
teacher AT this time the fancier tries
to gather some idea of the progress
achieved, and of the aptitude of the
different birds. The best are put in
the nearest vicinity of the teacher. In
order to prevent the young birds from
getting disturbed, their cages are
wrapped with cloth so as to prevent
them from seeing what is going on
around them, and in order to encourage
singing the cages are generally shaped
in form of a dome; this shape intensi-
| fies the sound, and the birds are
pleased in their own music. Then
comes a period of great trouble-the
moulting of the professor bir S. Dur
ing some ten weeks the latter remain
entirely silent, and the young birds are
very apt to fall into bad habits; as
soon as the voice of the professor is re-
gained the training goes on, of course.
Some $50, 600 canaries are trained each
year in the Harz region, and of these
100000 are sent to the United States,
81, 900 are sent to England, and 10000
are sent to Russia and other European
II
countries, and TO- 600 remain in Ger
many. The latter are the upper TO-
OOO'' of the canary world, the very
''piclS" of the best singers. Two firms
especially (Ruhr and Reiche Brothers)
make it their business to export ca
naries from Germany to America.
There are a number of varieties of the
canary. Artificial selection has to ac-
count for many of them. and while
some fanciers have selected individuals
especially notable for their song. 9TH
ers have selected birds for their form.
their color, their size. In Germany
the song is the main point; in England
the people seem to care only for color
or form; in Belgium shape only is con-
sidered. So there are great differ
ences among canaries.-Popular Sci
ence News.