The Belgische Bult or Bossu Belge is the native name of the Belgian Canary. G.T. Godwell gives a fairly lengthy description of the breed in his 'Encyclopaedia of Canaries' on page 231.

He notes that the heyday of the breed lasted for almost a hundred years, from the early 1800s to the outbreak of First World War - and it was the huge impact of WW1 on Belgium that triggered the decline of the breed. There was a partial recovery during the 1920s and 1930s but the Great War, according to Dodwell had:
"ensured the near extinction of the breed in its homeland - a blow from which it has never recovered."
The Second World War, accelerated the decline even further.

The original Belgian was a large bird, over 7 inches in length but the modern bird is in fact quiite small - Dodwell says that it is 'hardly larger than a Roller canary'.

The Belgian is a type bird and a 'bird of position' and is important in the history of canary breeding because it was brought into the UK in the 1860s - 1880s and was, in part, the raw material from which the Yorkshire Canary was bred, and in a different direction - it was the ancestor of the Scots Fancy. The Yorkie fanciers bred the 'hunched back' character out of their stock by selection over many years, and produced a bird that was straight as an arrow and almost as thin. The woollen-mill workers of Bradford in Yorkshire crossed their 'common canaries' with the Lancashire - to bring in size, then added Norwich crossed to produce dense feathering - finally they crossed the result to the Belgian to bring in long legs and 'position'. Somewhere along the way they bred-out the humped back qualities of the Belgian. The Scots did the opposite and bred a bird of remarkably 'hooped' appearance - valued for its ability to assume a position close to a perfect semicircle on the perch.

The lesson to be taken from all this is that ALL canaries are derived from the same ancestor (red-factor colouring being the only exception) - so all the varieties are just different aspects of the same genetic stock. In theory - and given enough time and commitment - one could selectively breed Rollers to become Lancashires, or Yorkshires to become Scots Fancy's. They are all simply 'exaggerated selections' from the same clay.

Belgium remains one of the epicentres of canary culture with many, many thousands of fanciers.
 
 

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