88 PET RABBITS, CAVIES, AND MICE. 



bred will be blacks and blues, and these should be in- 

 tensified in colour. If you mate a blue buck to a black 

 doe, save a pure coloured black buck and mate him to 

 a blue doe. By this means you will stamp in the 

 colours, and you will find, as is the case in Dutch 

 rabbits, it will enhance the colours of each. Do not 

 introduce grey blood, be it ever so dark. You will get 

 a nasty colour in that way, and troublesome white hairs. 

 In introducing blues amongst your blacks, it is best to 

 use dark dense blues, but pure in colour. We will next 

 allude to 



CHOCOLATES. 



" These should be of a rich dark shade, as nearly 

 as possible the colour of a piece of chocolate. They 

 are occasionally paired to blacks to improve the choco- 

 late colour, but the reverse should not be indulged in 

 if you wish to retain your blacks in purity. Therefore 

 do not keep the blacks from such litters, as those bred 

 from blacks and chocolates are sure to be of a rusty 

 tinge. It is really best, if you once get your chocolates 

 to a good deep pure colour, to pair chocolate to choco- 

 late, always taking care to select the richest coloured 

 ones to breed from, on both sides." So says Mr. 

 Hamlin. 



FAWNS. 



Some fanciers hold that these should be called 

 orange, not fawn, and there is a good deal of force in 

 the contention, for some of the deeper coloured fawns 

 are a distinct orange in tint, and the tone of colour is 

 present in all fawns in a greater or less degree. " If 

 they are a good deep colour," says Mr. Hamlin, " they 

 are really orange, and I don't think fawn is a proper 

 name for them." This, of course, is a matter of 

 opinion. A really good specimen of the fawn requires 

 a great deal of breeding. They should be of a very rich 

 colour the deeper and brighter the better. If they are 

 deep and yet dull in colour their beauty is not seen like 

 it is on a bright coloured one. Fawns have a tendency 

 to put on fat, consequently get unshapely, which is a 

 bad fault. It very often happens, moreover, that the 

 fat ones are the best coloured, and therefore fatness 

 should not cause them to be wholly discarded by a 



