CHAPTER X. 



THE MODERN SCOTCH FANCY. 



IT is with no inconsiderable amount of pleasure, I observe 

 that this elegant and aristocratic member of the canary family 

 has merged from its comparative seclusion, and now creates 

 a wide-spread interest amongst a large portion of English 

 fanciers. 



Before this variety was described in the first edition of the 

 " Canary Book," it was confined entirely to Scotland and the 

 border towns of Berwick, Northumberland, and Cumberland. 

 It is now over twenty years since I became warmly interested 

 in this magnificent production of Scotia, for to our far-seeing 

 and discriminating friends in North Britain are we indebted 

 for this handsome race of birds, so full of grace, beauty, and 

 refinement, elegance of form and contour, combined and 

 blended in a symmetrical whole. 



Some eighteen years ago no other variety, with the solitary 

 exception of the Belgian and common canary, were tolerated 

 ayont the Tweed, but since that period great and rapid strides 

 have been made in the endeavour to improve and make per- 

 fect this variety. A keen and unerring eye for elegance of 

 form is one of the natural instincts of Scotchmen, and most 

 of them are gifted with critical and refined tastes as well, 

 which guide them in their selection of birds of the most 

 approved type. In the method of judiciously crossing these 

 birds, exhibiting as they usually do much skill and care in 

 producing all the points of merit and excellence observable 



