Harz Roller
breed of domestic canary from the Upper Harz, Germany
Harz Roller (German: Harzer Roller [ˈhaʁtsɐ ˈʁɔlɐ] ) is the name of a breed of domestic canary bred in the Upper Harz mountains of Germany. The birds were bred in the Upper Harz between Lautenthal and Sankt Andreasberg in the middle of the 19th century and achieved European-wide fame. The song of the Harz Roller, like that of the common canary, is clear and consists of alternating beats, trills, and rolls—which is where the Harz Roller gets its name. The special song, which has made this breed a "best-selling export," must be learned.
The Harz Roller is also alternatively called the Roller Canary and was also known and spelt as Hartz Mountain Canary in historic American sources.
History
The Harz Roller descends from the Atlantic canary, which was introduced to Europe from Madeira and the Azores. Miners from Imst brought the canary to the Upper Harz region as a pet around 1730 in search of work. The wild canary has greenish-yellow and gray plumage, which developed into the Harz Roller during domestication to pale yellow to golden yellow. More recent breeds also include cinnamon-red, cinnamon-brown, orange-yellow, mottled, and tabby birds.
Since 2001 there has been a Harz Roller Museum in Sankt Andreasberg.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harz Roller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.