Four Colly Birds

Four Colly Birds is the original line in the song 12 Days of Christmas (first published in England in 1780 without music as a chant or rhyme).  "Colly" being a regional English expression for "black". This wording must have been opaque to many even in the 19th century: "canary birds", "colour'd birds", "curley birds", and "corley birds" are found in its place. Frederic Austin's 1909 version, which introduced the now-standard melody, also altered the fourth day's gift to four calling birds, and this variant has become the most popular, although "colly" is still found.

These black birds really fly.....