Pigeons will breed nearly the year round, stopping only while molting, but in cold climates many young birds die in the nests in winter. Those who are breeding for market take this as one of the risks of their business. If only half of the squabs are reared in winter, the profits may be as great as when the actual results are much better, because in winter the prices are much higher than at the seasons when squabs are most easily produced. Fanciers do not usually allow their pigeons to breed during the coldest winter months, but take the eggs from the nests or keep the sexes separate until spring approaches. The object of the fancier is to produce specimens having the finest possible development of form and color. He cannot do this successfully under conditions that cause heavy losses. The birds may grow under such conditions but will not have the superior quality that he desires, and so he finds it more profitable to concentrate all his attention upon the birds that he can produce when the weather is most favorable. CHAPTER XIX CANARIES The canary is the only common cage bird. There are about fifty kinds of birds that make desirable pets, but very few of them will breed in small cages, and many will not breed in confinement even when kept in large aviaries. In the United States the number of kinds of cage birds is restricted by state laws which prohibit keeping native song birds in captivity. Such laws are necessary to preserve the birds. Before these laws were passed, great numbers of song birds were trapped every year to send to Europe, where the keeping of cage birds as pets is more popular than in America. Song birds from other parts of the world may be kept in this country, but most of them are so scarce and expensive that few people would buy them even if the canary were not a more satisfactory pet. =Description.= The common domestic canary is a small bird, about five inches in length, very lively and sprightly in manner, and in color yellow or a greenish gray and yellow. The male and female are so much alike that the sex cannot be positively determined by the appearance. Although it often happens that the male is more slender in form and brighter in color, the voice is a better index of sex and, in mature birds of good singing stock, is very reliable. The male is the singer. The female also has a singing voice, but it is so inferior in quality to that of the male that few people care for it. =Origin.= The domestic canary belongs to the finch family and is found wild in the Canary Islands (from which it takes its name) and in a number of other islands in that part of the world. The color of the wild birds is described, by some who have seen them, as greenish-gray, changing to a greenish-yellow on the breast and under parts. Other observers describe the wild birds of some localities as brownish. [Illustration: Fig. 220. Tricolor Canary[24]]