310 The Canary Book. 



of, as at present, pandering to the whims and fancies of 

 inexperienced breeders. 



"Where this craving for size, to the detriment of all 

 other qualities, will lead, I do not pretend to know, but I 

 think it has already done an incalculable amount of mischief. 

 Amateurs desirous of breeding these modern plain-heads 

 should, if possible, procure hens of the old original strains, 

 and mate these with large specimens of the crest-breds, with 

 long stout bodies, broad deep chests, wide substantial backs, 

 small narrow heads, and short tails ; or they may pair a 

 hen of the description named with a Lancashire plain-head 

 cock, and select from this cross the shortest and stoutest 

 birds (many of which will not exceed six or six-and-a-half 

 inches in length), and pair these again with small, short, 

 thick-set, crest-bred plain-heads; or a bird bred between a 

 Lancashire and a Yorkshire first cross may be put to a bird 

 of the original Norwich type to breed these modern varieties 

 from. It is all a matter of taste and judicious selection. The 

 colour can be obtained by feeding during the moulting pro- 

 cess, but those birds which show richest in natural colour, 

 and which have favoured the primitive type, will assuredly 

 show up best, so far as colour is concerned, at the end of 

 the process. If you first cross the plain-head and crest-bred 

 together, in some cases too much skull and eyebrow will 

 be produced, but if these birds are again crossed with a 

 good specimen of the small Yorkshire variety, the present 

 admired type will be obtained. As soon as you succeed in 

 getting the birds up to the required standard of size and 

 shape, breed them sib i.e., in and in for a generation or 

 two, and then introduce fresh blood from some other fancier, 

 who has a similar type of birds to your own. It takes a 

 few years to produce in anything like perfection a new style 

 or type of canary. 



The only thing further that will be needed will be to feed 

 according to the methods we recommend to obtain colour, 

 but it will be found that birds bred in this way will be 

 better adapted to the yellow than the red-fed classes for 



