This is the melanin-marked version of the 'little yellow canary' - in other words, the original wild canary is coloured very like the bird in this picture.

      In the melanin canaries, the white fringe of the non-intensive lipochrome canaries becomes grayish-brown. The exact same lipochrome colour is present in this bird as in a yellow canary, but it is not so easily visible, being layered under at one or more of the three colours of melanin present. These colours are known as eumelanin black, eumelanin brown, and phaeomelanin brown.

      It is the combination of this yellow ground colour and the overlaid melanins which gives this canary the appearance of being green. The white feathering showing in the area of the flanks and vent is considered a fault in a show canary. When show breeders are heard speaking of a 'foul' canary, this is what they are speaking of, a melanin bird with a few white feathers showing in an otherwise dark bird.

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