PET RABBITS, CAVIES, AND MICE. 89 



judge, as colour is, after all the chief point. It is diffi- 

 cult to prevent some mice getting fat, do what you will. 

 Some will put on flesh on the most spare feeding. 

 When breeding fawns it is always best to keep the 

 richest coloured ones, and mate them together, always 

 endeavouring to keep them as shapely as possible. 



BLUES. 



These, when of a good medium shade, are really a 

 fascinating variety in point of colour. The standard 

 for blue mice requires that in colour they shall as nearly 

 as possible resemble that of a new slate. However, as 

 is the case with some of the other self-colours, blues 

 vary much in point of shade. For instance, some are 

 light, some medium, and some are dark in shade. But 

 when once you get them to a good medium shade they 

 will breed very true to colour. The best way to proceed 

 is to procure a pair that have been blue bred for several 

 generations. From these you will be the most likely 

 to breed blue mice fit for the show bench. "There 

 ought to be no difficulty in this," says Mr. Hamlin, and 

 he adds: "Of course, should it happen that you get 

 some that are too dark, I advise crossing them with 

 black-eyed silvers. That is pair the dark blue does to 

 the silver buck, and select the blues from the litters. 

 After that, you could pair blue to blue again, always 

 remembering to keep the most level coloured ones." 



BLACK-EYED SILVERS. 



These, when of a light shade, are very pretty. They 

 have probably originated from blues, perhaps from 

 a cross between chocolate and blue. The reason for 

 this conjecture is that some of the black-eyed silvers, if 

 too dark, look like a bad coloured chocolate. This 

 difficulty can always be got over by selecting the lightest 

 from the litters and breeding from them. There are 

 also the 



PINK-EYED SILVERS. 



It is difficult to tell exactly how these originated. 

 They are sweetly pretty, and present day judges of mice 

 seem to prefer them to the black-eyed ones. This is 



