Mule Breeding. 93 



pecuniarily for the trials and disappointments which are almost 

 certain to beset you at the beginning ; but you must persevere, 

 and if my instructions are strictly followed, I have every 

 confidence that your labours will terminate satisfactorily. 

 Other kinds of mules can be obtained, such as siskin and 

 canary, bullfinch and greenfinch, &c., but of these I will treat 

 more particularly under their respective headings. 



The goldfinch and canary undoubtedly produce by far the 

 most beautiful of all the canary hybrids, as such variety and 

 diversity of colour and markings are obtained as cannot be 

 had by any other cross. The first thing to be aimed at is to 

 get a strain of canary hens that can be relied upon to breed 

 marked mules, as it is beyond dispute that the majority of 

 hens chosen at random, or even selected, as they sometimes 

 are, by breeders who imagine that they know " a thing or 

 two," very seldom produce the merest semblance of a pied 

 bird, although they have tried season after season with hens 

 of totally different strains. When first I commenced to 

 breed mules, which is a good many years ago, I began, like 

 a great many more fanciers, with no more idea of anything 

 further being required than simply to place a male goldfinch 

 and female canary together in a breeding-cage, give them a 

 nest, and await the result. Experience has taught me very 

 different. After breeding mules for several years, with no 

 better success than, as a mortified old fancier illnaturedly 

 observed, "getting a houseful of sparrows" for such are 

 dark mules sometimes designated I began to turn my attention 

 to the subject more closely. 



SIB-BRED BIRDS. Having determined to enquire into this 

 subject, I paid a visit to a person who had obtained consider- 

 able notoriety in his neighbourhood among the "fancy," 

 from the fact of his having bred, during the previous five or 

 six years, two or three very good goldfinch and canary 

 mules. He was a carpenter by trade, and I found him 

 shrewd and intelligent, and inclined to be communicative. 

 As a matter of course, I asked him the usual "thousand and 

 one" questions, but all the information of a practical 



