I05 



a strong weakness — (rather paradoxical this) — for visiting 

 Cage Bird Shows, so it did not require luuch influence 

 to prevail upon nie to be there. I went, and I .saw many 

 persons and things, a few of which I will now do my 

 best to relate to you. 



First of all, I saw two or three alterations in the 

 Hybrid Classes fi-om last year. There was one class 

 inslead of two, this year, for Canary hybrids approaching 

 the highest standard of perfection, viz., " clear or 

 lightly ticked." Mr. R. Colton, of Sheffield, had placed 

 on view three of the six birds entered, but he bowed the 

 knee — and to a lady — from Coldstream, N.B., for premier 

 honours in this class. 



The " Evenly Marked" (and the second standard of 

 perfection) Class (ten entries) contained three good ones, 

 standing well away from the rest. The next two classes were 

 improved in a small, but very important way, upon last 

 year, and the addition of the words "or variegated" 

 made the wording of these classes very clear and 

 definite. In the Yellow Class we saw that the bird stand- 

 ing first had apparently a blemish on the " saddle," 

 just above the left wing inner flights, some feathers 

 being missing and new pens beginning to appear. This 

 bird was carrying " dark " feathers on that spot last 

 year, which feathers made the bird into a very lightly 

 variegated mule in my opinion. By the absence of 

 those "dark" feathers at the late Show, the bird 

 was, in my opinion, transformed into an unevenly 

 marked mule. I much preferred the 2nd bird on the 

 days form. Most of the remaining birds in this 

 class were rather heavily variegated and call for little 

 comment. 



The Variegated Buff Class brought together seven- 

 teen birds, and ten or twelve of these were very good 

 specimens of the nondescript character, and the 

 running for honours was very close, little dividing the 

 first four. 



The next two classes, " Dark Yellow " and " Dark 

 Buff"" Goldfiuch-Canarv were not so well filled as we 



