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Warning: All rights reserved. This article appeared in the issue of the National Finch and Softbill Society Bulletin. Volume xx. No. . Jan/Feb. 2006. (p. x-xx). Anyone wishing to reproduce this article for another bulletin, newsletter, article, journal, CD, or any other public forum needs express written consent of the NFSS and of the author michael@exoticfinches.com

The Japanese are well known for their appreciation of domesticated animals and plants and for their tendency to collect and cherish even the most extreme variants. In their culture, there is a term called koten engei, which is a system of displaying and determining the relative value of specific mutations in addition to honoring outstanding specimens of each mutation. Koten engei is popular in the plant world with species such as the dwarf Rhapis (a type of palm tree) or Rohdea (a lily like plant ). Often these are variegated, contorted, dwarf, or otherwise extremely unlike the normal plants. Many are so "disabled" they do not thrive without special care.

While the Japanese simply enjoy collecting rare varieties, they value greatly the excellent individuals of rare varieties. In most cases the perfect example is not something inbred but more likely comes about with as much luck as breeding skill. Yet, superior individuals can cost a fortune because owning such a specimen brings great pride and respect to the owner. The more difficult the mutation is to grow or breed the more valuable it is. With the colorful fish koi, we excellently marked specimens can cost thousands of dollars. Yet, in many cases, it is the random but desirable color pattern that drives up the value of a specific fish even though it is unlikely that any progeny will have the same color pattern. As you will see with my discussion of frilled society finches, the principles that are the basis of koten engei are also engrained in the minds of Japanese finch breeders. Having frilled society finches is one thing, but having a perfect albino frill with three frilled mutations combined and expressed perfectly in one bird is "the drug of choice" for society finch breeders in Japan.

There is no question that the Japanese are responsible for the development and refinement of the frilled mutations in society finches. In a previous NFSS article (Vol. 16. No. 2. March/April. 1999 p.16-22) I described how we were able to obtain frilled society finches from Japan. Briefly, in the spring of 1998, Garrie Landry received a request for society finches from a well-known Japanese canary breeder, Shimpei Tanaguchi, who at the time was living in New Jersey. Shimpei wanted to know if he could buy some "pearl" society finches that he saw featured in a Japanese bird magazine. He did not know that Americans and Europeans had never heard of such a thing never mind own one. To make a long story short I went to Japan and using a hired translator I talked with the breeder, Mr.Osamu Tamura. After a subsequent visit by Shimpei and financial backing from Garrie Landry the three of us joined forces to import 50 birds from just outside of Tokyo. The importation included pearls, albinos, creaminos, grays, and frills.

In this article I will discuss in detail only the frill types that we imported in 1998 since, to my knowledge, these are the only types existing in the United States. All of the known frilled mutations appear to be dominant in nature but as I will describe later, their expression can be highly variable. None of them are sex-linked traits.

Interestingly, the Japanese names for frills are not descriptive of the bird's appearance, but have meaning in Japanese culture. The naming system sets up a hierarchy of importance and value for each type of frill. Unfortunately, many Americans choose to ignore other cultures and have begun to call these birds by descriptive names like "head and neck frill". I hope that we get over the culture block and call them by their Japanese names. After all, most Americans would feel it was wrong for pizza to be called "round dough with sauce" or jambalaya to be called "spicy rice meaty thing" in Japan. We are perfectly happy with zebra finch mutations called "eumo" or "phaeo" which really are not that descriptive. You get the point. Please note that the line drawings (slightly modified) of frill types in my article were kindly provided by Mr.Tamura.

Mutation 1. The bonten

The first type of frill is the crested mutation that causes the feathers on the head to grow downwards resembling a poor example of a Gloster Corona canary. This mutation, or a similar one, has been in America for many years known as the crested, but in Japan there are variations on it that are much more eccentric, with feathers pointing upward, backward, and downward. It is not known if this mutation appeared several times in the history of society finch breeding or if all crested are derived from a single mutant bird. Although it is often stated to be fact, mating two bontens or cresteds does not appear to result in lethal embryos, although doing so sometimes results in a bird with a double-type crest that lacks of coherence and symmetry. Mr. Tamura recommended not mating bonten to bonten. It appears that bonten is a dominant mutation since offspring of normal head and bonten will contain either all crested or 1:1 crested: normal (probably if the crested parent is split, i.e. heterozygous). To my knowledge there have been no data of controlled crosses that has been published to demonstrate this fact, but it is somewhat accepted that bonten or crested head is fully dominant.

In Japan "bonten" is the equivalent to "Brahma", a Hindu deity incorporated in the first century A.D. into Buddhist imagery. In the Indian Middle Ages, Brahma became one of the supreme figures of the Hindu pantheon, the lord of sacred knowledge. In the Japanese Buddhist temples, statues of Bonten were often paired with statues of Indra as subordinate attendants of a Buddhist deity.

Mutation 2. The chiyoda.

In the chiyoda, the frill mutation causes the chest feathers to grow upward (with good luck) or upward and outward in a swirl. In some cases it affects the feathers just below the beak and they may stand up looking brushed in the wrong direction. The chiyoda expresses itself in a highly variable manner and in some cases it is hardly noticeable. Yet, even birds with very poor expression can, on occasion, produce spectacular examples of this phenotype as seen in the ideal drawing above. The beauty is enhanced in buff birds since feather length exaggerates the appearance. Some birds will have several rows of feather pointing up also enhancing the effect. Mr. Tamura told me it is not desirable to see the upward feathers reach so high on the neck that, not unlike a turtleneck sweater that is too big, there is a break or cupping where the feathers hit the upper neck. In my experience even great chiyodas will produce only about 20-30% great chiyodas, the rest are swirled or weakly expressed.

Chiyoda is the name of the location of the palace of the Emperor located in the center of Tokyo. The Chinese character for "Chiyoda" means an "eternal rice field", the symbol of wealth.

Mutation 3. The chunagon. (possibly a combination of two mutations?)

Chunagons have head crests and have feathers in the back of the neck that point toward the top of the head. It must be linked in some way to bonten since with the stock we imported you can not get this neck phenotype without also having the crested head. Alternatively, the bonten portion of chunagon is not determined by the regular bonten mutation but is a part of the chunagon mutation itself. It is still unclear, however, why this particular neck frill always is correlated to the head frill. Recently, the Japanese have isolated birds with just the neck frill and not the head crest, possibly an indication that there is linkage and that the linkage was broken. I will discuss the newer Japanese types at the end of this article.

The chunagon is a "medium-rank" officer in the hierarchy of rulers. In some literature this name is given to a series of ladies in waiting. Such attendants either helped other rulers or acted as intermediaries.

Combination 1. The chiyoda bonten

Chiyoda bonten is the combination of bonten (head crest) and chiyoda (chest frill) in one bird. The most common way to get this bird is to cross a bonten with a chiyoda. Dainagon (see below) crossed to a normal may also give you chiyoda bonten.

Combination 2. The Dainagon

The dainagon is a combination of chunagon and chiyoda so that you get the crested head and upturned neck and the chest frill. The best dainagons have the birds head appearing to peek out of a circular collar of feathers. To the Japanese, the head reminds them of a flower. The most valuable examples have a perfect neck color where the chunagon expression and the chiyoda expression appear to merge seamlessly. I have never produced one that good but have seen them in Japan and on Japanese web pages.

In Japan dainagon is a high ranking officer or a Great Councilor. He must be honored.

Some odder frills - the King, Queens, and Princesses

These names are obviously borrowed from the English language but are used to describe these birds in Japan. While I have not bred these phenotypes, in Japan one can see birds where the frill appears all over the body in various states of disarray. These are given the names Prince, Queen, or King depending on the extent of the expression but in my estimation these birds probably result from ill advised frill to frill pairings. It has been stated on Japanese web pages that these extreme frills are those that happen to survive a normally lethal embryo condition when similar frills are paired. I have seen a few of these in Japan and often they are unable to fly. In Japan, most breeders will not show or aim for this combination. The Japanese claim they can avoid this most easily by never crossing like frills (e.g. dainagon to dainagon). So what do you pair? The Japanese breeders recommend that only a few combinations be made when using frills. Do not be discouraged by the potential problems when breeding frills. The following advice should lead to good results.

Of course a pairing of any frill to a normal non-frill is fine. Expect to get some frills in the first generation since all of the frills are in some way dominant. Acceptable pairings among frills include, bonten x chiyoda (to attempt to get chiyoda bonten) and chunagon x chiyoda (to attempt to get dainagon). Once you have a dainagon, a dainagon mated to a normal can yield any type of frill since frill appears dominant and dainagons have all the mutations in one bird.

Pairings that are NOT recommended include bonten x bonten (not lethal but you may get poorly arranged double crests) and chunagon x bonten (again not lethal but it may result in a double crest.). Danger of birth defects (or perhaps princesses, queens, and kings) can occur when the following pairings are made: chiyoda bonten x chiyoda bonten, chunagon x chunagon, dainagon x dainagon, chiyoda x chiyoda, chiyoda bonten x chiyoda, chiyoda bonten x dainagon, and chunagon x dainagon. If attempted these pairings often result in weak babies or deformed babies usually with extremely defective feet. Survivors may be princesses, queens, and kings, a somewhat regal designation for very troubled birds.

At the time we imported the birds (December 16, 1998), there were four clearly recognized show classes of frills; the bonten, chiyoda, chunagon, and dainagon. Recently, I have seen Japanese web pages with pictures of what is called the Kubi-chiyoda which looks like a chunagon but without the bonten (head crest) (http://w1.avis.ne.jp/~hirocafe/columns/jushi5-7-5.html), i.e. a bird with just a neck frill. I have discussed these types with Mr. Kanji Kawabata, a well-known breeder in Japan. Mr. Kawabata said the name Kubi-chiyoda means "chiyoda on the neck" (as opposed to the classic chiyoda which is on the chest). The mutation, however, is not at all related to the one that causes the chest chiyoda phenotype. To my knowledge, Kubi-chiyoda is not available outside of Asia. Mr. Kawabata told me he did not believe that the Kubi-chiyoda was the result of a linkage break between bonten and the neck-frill but he did not supply any evidence to support this concept.

In addition, the Kubi-chiyoda has apparently been mixed with the classic chest chiyoda to create a bird with the breast frill and the neck frill without the head frill and this is called the Wa-Chiyoda (http://w1.avis.ne.jp/~hirocafe/columns/jushi5-7-8.html).

The bird looks like a dainagon without the head crest. Mr. Kawabata tells me that "wa means "the circle" in Japanese so Wa-Chiyoda is a bird whose head is encircled by chiyoda type frill.

Frills can be bred in any color background in either selfs or pieds. Some of the nicest ones I've seen are gray mottled pied chiyodas, where the upward chest frill is variegated and creamino chiyodas with deep color on the chest. The Japanese also have created frilled pearls but I do not see the point since the chiyoda pearl has its pearl necklace covered up. My personal favorite is the classic chiyoda since it leaves the bird sleek and smooth everywhere besides the frill which stands out proud in front of the bird.

Before you get interested in frills, there are negatives to discuss. With the exception of the bonten, all other frill types appear to be weakened to some extent. I have had a chiyoda bonten reach six years old and father four nice frills in his lifetime but several of my frills have died at three or four years old. It is often possible to know which babies will be frilled very early because they are noticeably smaller than their non-frilled nest mates. This is not because the parents won't feed them but simply because they start off really slow. Eventually, they may grow to the size of their normal siblings but I have never seen a frill grow significantly larger than its normal siblings. In my experience, female chiyodas and dainagons are not good egg producers and I have had some of mine have never laid an egg or skip days when they do lay. Males seem to be fine but really frilled dainagons are small and mating them may require the selection of an appropriately sized hen. Other downsides to frills include the tendency for some highly expressed frills to have feet that curve inward and they have difficulty perching. It may require thinner rougher perches to keep such birds from slipping. In addition, with the exception of the bonten, all the other types show a tendency for truncated primary feathers. Rather than one wing feather being longer than the next, all wing feathers can be very close in size and sometimes the bird will have trouble keeping them in order. Even so, they fly fairly well.

You may be saying why would anyone want frills if it is difficult to produce good ones, they have some potential defects, and they are so odd in so many way. You'd have to ask the Japanese collector that question. Ask him right after he pays someone the equivalent of a thousand dollars for a perfect specimen of an albino dainagon. And then ask him if you can have the honor of taking the first picture of his new acquisition. For me, frills are living souvenirs of one of the most exciting excursions I have ever made- an excursion into another culture that with any luck will result in generations of American-born frills long after I'm gone.

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For more information and pictures of frills see www.exoticfinches.com/mutation-s.htm

For Japanese images see http://w1.avis.ne.jp/~hirocafe/columns/jushi5-7-2.html

If you go to that web page click "next" on the lower right of each page to see more and more images of frills.

note: all web links mentioned in this article were active at the time of this publication

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