Our London Fancy Birds. 37 



second autumnal moulting introduces white or grey into 

 these latter, which at once disqualifies it for the pur- 

 poses of exhibition, and increases year by year till it 

 becomes merely an ordinary plain bird we see every 

 day. To be a prize bird there must not be a foul 

 feather — that is, either white amongst the black, or 

 black or grey amongst the yellow, found in its body. 

 The latter also must be a rich golden yellow or deep 

 orange, without any approach to a paler or mealy tinge, 

 which at once would be fatal to its chance of success 

 when exhibited in competition with others. Such being 

 the case, we need scarcely say that a bird possessing 

 such qualifications is comparatively rare, and fetches a 

 high price. A guinea and upwards is the ordinary 

 price asked by dealers for these beautiful specimens of 

 canary land, though good birds, with here and there a 

 foul marking disqualifying them for exhibition, may 

 often be purchased for half that sum. For my own 

 part, I believe this beautiful variety has been produced 

 by crossing a Lizard cock with a French hen, whose 

 colour is a beautiful bright yellow, with an intermixture 

 of jet-black spots, and but little or no white in them — 

 a variety which was first introduced into this country 

 some few years ago, or vice versa, as the case may be. By 

 judicious crossing and recrossing in this way, I have no 

 doubt the London fancy bird of which we are speaking 

 has been obtained and preserved ; and any one fond of 

 making experiments of this nature so doing would, I 

 feel persuaded, be rewarded with success for his pains. 

 This, however, it must be understood is merely a private 

 opinion of my own, countenanced, nevertheless, by men 



