This attractive but much less lively colored "other half" of the
Black-hooded Red Siskin will also produce fertile canary hybrids. The
female siskin illustrates very well the dimorphic colorations common to
many wild birds, being slightly orange in many of the areas showing
deepest red in the male Black-hooded Red Siskin.
These siskins are considerably smaller than even very small canaries,
and they have an unattractive wild song. As might be expected, their
coloring, size, and song characteristics are transmitted to the hybrids
resulting from crossing with the canary. The fancier, through selective
breeding back to desirable canary stock, endeavors to eliminate the
unwanted siskin characteristics and at the same time retain the effect
of the red coloring which produces many shades of apricot, orange and
copper. PLATE 31