64 THE ROLLER. CANARY 
weather lasts, but when winter approaches there is the 
question of temperature, and for the sake of the birds, 
which compared to his hens, are inactive, confined to 
small cages, he may be compelled to bring them all into 
one comfortably warmed abode. The result will be 
that the advantage he has gained will be lost, for the 
birds, although well ahead in tours, are not yet fixed in 
song, and will consequently vacillate and change about. 
REMARKABLE IMITATIVE FACULTY 
The imitative faculty of the Roller is remarkable; 
for instance, time after time I have found that, in the 
case of a year-old cock, which has been used to breed 
with, if when he drops into moult he is placed alongside 
a cock not moulting, he will take up the new song, so 
much so that you will often not be able to distinguish 
one from the other. 
In some experiments of my own some moulting 
cocks in a flight were set apart in a quiet room, and here, 
a small company, undisturbed, they entirely forgot their 
own song and acquired that of the bird placed in their 
hearing. In these cases it was a question each time of 
a beautifully bent rich song which seems to have been 
especially attractive to the musical sensibility of the 
moulting cocks. 
If a breeder wishes to obtain the greatest number of 
good birds and lacks a sufficient number of separate 
rooms, and perhaps of tutors also, let him take the 
youngsters bred from his best cock and put them with 
him in a room apart, or, failing the parent cock, then 
some other first-class tutor. He may thus reckon on 
obtaining a small output of good birds. 
