BREEDING THE NORWICH CANARY 



229 



untidy waists, that is, feather hanging 

 loosely just behind the legs, marring the 

 neat finish of a bird ; standing a little too 

 high on leg, and too erect caiTiage, are all 

 faults that can be eradicated by pairing 

 birds free from s>ich blemishes to those 

 possessing them. Large hens are not, as 

 a rule, so finely movilded and nicely cut 

 away as medium and smaller hens, and 

 where this is the case a medium-sized cock 

 is a suitable mate for such a hen, for 

 generalh'^ such a bird is active and smartly 

 moulded, and will thus correct in the 

 progeny the points which the hen lacks. 

 On the other hand, most breeders kno^v 

 that it is desirable to jJaii" up a large cock 

 to the medium or smaller hens. 



In the gradual building up of the modern 

 varieties breeders have had to introduce 



certain out - crosses, and 



Out=crosses. ,, n • .• c «-i 



thus all varieties 01 the 



Canary owe something to each other. 

 This crossing would seem at the outset 

 to strike directly at the root of the theory 

 of " pure " breeds of any kind ; but 

 fanciers generally know how extremely 

 difiicvilt it is to maintain what is under- 

 stood by purity of breed, or to refute the 

 truth which seems to speak out occasionally 

 in the persons of their different specialities, 

 hinting at a remote impuritj-, imported for 

 useful ends, which has not quite died out. 

 That, we take it, is the purest breed in 

 which the most desirable properties are 

 most securely rooted, and perpetuate them- 

 selves with the most constant fixity ; and 

 we might almost go so far as to say that, 

 in some fancies, the demand for ultra- 

 excellence has induced systems of breeding 

 which would make a reversion to some of 

 the " old," " original," " pure " (?) types 

 anything but satisfactory, few of them 

 having reached our day without having 

 been vastly improved upon and materially 

 altered, to their manifest advantage. 



In the early days, when the Norwich 

 was a much smaller bird than now, the 

 Lizard cross frequently gave good results, 

 for the Lizard possessed the sought-for 

 colour in an eminent degree, and its shape 

 and texture of feather harmonised well with 



the Norwich of those days. In the effort 

 to get colour in our stock we must never 

 overlook the fact that no plan is more surely 

 fatal to future prospects than a persistent 

 endeavour to make colour feeding super- 

 sede breeding for colour production. It 

 is here that the careful breeder for colour 

 will always leave the fancier behind who 

 trusts to the colour pot to make up that 

 which he forgets when pairing his birds. 

 The Lizard cross is not now the most 

 suitable for our purpose, since the Norwich 

 of to-day is a much larger bird. This 



difference in size is due to tiie 

 Introduction introduction of Crest blood 

 gj^jj^ through the Crest-bred — a 



cross which we have used with 

 success. At that time the Crest Canary 

 was much closer in feather and nearer in 

 type to the Norwich, but larger, and of 

 better colour, as Crests were then paired 

 Yellow to Buff, like Norwich Plainheads. 

 This cross was at first much bewailed, and 

 yet, but for its introduction, we should not 

 possess the present-day grand type of 

 Norwich. The desire was for more size, 

 and this the Crest possessed, and, moreover, 

 it was the nearest approach in type. Wliat 

 then could be more natural than to use it 

 to introduce the desired size, and after- 

 wards, by careful selection, to retain this 

 increased size, and get rid of the other 

 properties not desired in the Norwich ? 

 The real trouble was that breeders were 

 in too great a hurry to put the changed 

 type on the show bench before the birds 

 were properly fined down, and had 

 got rid of all Crest-bred characteristics. 

 This impatience gave the opponents of 

 the introduction of any foreign blood 

 their opportunity, and crossing with the 

 Crest was given the credit of every evil, 

 and particularly of loss of colour. This 

 latter was true to a certain extent, for 

 double buffing had been much resorted 

 to with the view of further increasing size, 

 trusting to the colour-food pot to make up 

 for the colour thus lost by the abuse of 

 double buffing. To double buff occasionally 

 is an advantage when it assists to complete 

 some work or point desired, but excessive 



