7 'he Manchester Coppy. 257 



two buff Coppies, in place of a buff and a yellow, and the 

 result is generally the production of rough- and slack-feathered 

 birds. Discard all birds to breed from that inherit grave 

 faults, such as open centres, split side or frontal crests, bare- 

 ness at the base of the skull or neck, with back and tails 

 inclined to be circular, cross wings, loose ungainly tails, or birds 

 that are narrow in the head, and with thin scraggy necks or 

 weakly legs, or birds that do not stand erect on the perch. 

 As soon as you succeed in producing birds of a good stamp 

 you must adopt the plan I have frequently recommended for 

 many years in breeding birds of other varieties, viz., consan- 

 guinity or in-breeding, for there is nothing to equal it when 

 used in moderation for perpetuating the features you desire to 

 retain. 



Lancashire birds, like their progenitors, the Dutch and 

 Belgian canaries, are not reliable nurses; very few of them 

 excel in this respect, and the males- I have generally found to 

 be worse than the females. Therefore, if you decide to breed 

 birds of this kind, by all means obtain a few good reliable 

 foster parents, either German, Cinnamons, Greens, or Cross- 

 breds (between the Yorkshire and Norwich variety), all of 

 which as a rule are good nurses, otherwise you will not succeed 

 in your endeavours, although you may put up several pairs 

 to breed from. Another great drawback to these large 

 and noble birds, the Lancashires, is their great lack of 

 stamina; they are far from robust and vigorous birds, taken 

 as a whole, and they are prone to be affected by those 

 terrible maladies, asthma and consumption, whicR are 

 probably the most troublesome and fatal complaints that 

 affect the canary. 



Some of the specimens I have seen have evidently been 

 crossed with the Belgian canary, but these are much thinner 

 in the body, considerably narrower in the head, and flat at 

 the sides; furthermore, they exhibit a little of the Belgian 

 shape in the curvature of the back, and are never possessed 

 of such expansive crests as those which are full of the old 

 Dutch cannry. 



