324 The Canary Book. 



offspring from both parents proved most disappointing, so 

 that whenever you find a pair of birds produce young of a 

 superior class, do not separate them; and in order to keep 

 the blood pure breed them occasionally nearly allied, say, 

 brother and sister, or uncle and niece, and so on. I also 

 recommend fanciers who breed extraordinarily good birds, if 

 they desire to keep up their name and fame as successful 

 exhibitors, to keep the best of their specimens to breed from, 

 and not to sell them even at " fancy " prices, for in the long 

 run it will pay best to keep them, for good specimens can 

 only be bred from typical parents as a rule. 



There is also a great deal depending on selection. Choose 

 birds that possess the best points; you must have very stout 

 full-bodied specimens, with wide big heads, thick necks, and a 

 profusion of long feather, especially on the head, which, when 

 turned back, should reach to the end of the bill, and with 

 thick drooping eyebrows also; only you must not discard a 

 really well-bred bird simply because it does not happen to 

 inherit all these qualities. I have great faith in good blood, 

 and I have known grand birds bred from hens that were 

 undersized and rather small in head and body, but of un- 

 doubted quality as regarded breeding; hens not at all such 

 as I would have selected had I not known the strain. On 

 the other hand, I have seen miserable specimens produced 

 from birds possessing all the qualities I have named I refer, 

 of course, to crested-bred plain-heads but which were not 

 the produce of high-class parents ; so that it behoves an 

 amateur to be careful in the selection of his breeding stock. 



My advice i& to keep your own plain-head hens, and buy 

 crested cocks that have taken honours or prizes at the leading 

 shows, and the more strains of high-class blood you can get 

 into your birds the more reliable and profitable they will in 

 time become, and the more certain you will be of producing 

 typical specimens. The Lancashire fanciers are now very 

 loath to part with their best birds. A few years ago some 

 spirited breeders of the Crested- Norwich variety offered them 

 tempting prices, and in many cases succeeded in obtaining 



