THE ROLLER CANARY 29 
Breeders such as Rosenbach, Volkmann, Engelhe, 
Truto, Seifert, Bergmann, Erntyes, Wooje, Jacquemin, 
and others who have made great strains, all practised 
and preached in-breeding. 
WHAT 1T WILL DO 
In-breeding, properly followed, will improve the song 
of the Roller Canary, and by the same process of selection 
and mating may the outward form of the birds be im- 
proved. Indeed, it is possible by such to create a strain of 
Rollers which for song and dominant form will repeat 
season after season with surprising and pleasing 
regularity, until the breeder can claim, within the space 
of several seasons, a super strain of Rollers. Let us 
consider these factors. Take vigour, this is most 
important, and in every description of breeding vigour 
is the first selection. Breed vigour into your stock in 
an intensive form and sickness will seldom worry you. 
It is my opinion that wild birds are so intensively bred 
that vigour has prevailed for centuries and the weaklings 
have long since passed away. Select your breeding stock 
from sound healthy birds. Never breed with weak or 
sickly birds, and you can in-breed for ever. 
It is in-breeding in families or flocks which has 
caused our native songsters to breed so absolutely true to 
vigour, size, shape, colour and marking that the young 
repeated their inherited factors with regularity. Think 
of the regularity of marking seen in the Goldfinch, the 
Chaffinch, Bullfinch, Siskin and other British birds. It 
is all the result of in-breeding. “‘ Birds of a feather flock 
together” is an old saying, but there is much in the 
remark which accounts for wild birds seldom crossing. 
