294 OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



and simply takes a cursory look at all of them, tires of the regular 

 classes at a show in a very short time. After the awards have 

 been made, the ribbons or cards on the coops will show the win- 

 ning birds and their relative positions, but unless one knows 

 something of the methods and rules of judging and compares the 

 birds with some care, he is likely to get the impression that mak- 

 ing comparisons between show birds requires a keener critical 

 faculty than he possesses, and to conclude that it is quite use- 

 less for him to attempt to discover why the birds have been 

 ranked in the order in which the judge has placed them. 



Judging live stock is not a matter of simple comparisons of 

 weights and dimensions. The personal opinions of the judge 

 necessarily affect his decisions, and as the opinions of men 

 differ, their judgments will vary. A judge is often in doubt as 

 to which of two or more birds is (all things considered) the 

 better specimen, but he must make his decision on the birds as 

 they appear to him at the time, and that decision must stand 

 for that competition. No one, no matter how well he may know 

 the requirements of the standard for a variety and the methods 

 of applying it, can discover by a study of a class of birds all of 

 the judge's reasons for his decisions; but any one who will keep 

 in mind and try to apply a few simple, general rules can look 

 over a variety that he has never seen before, and of which he 

 may not know the name, and (unless the judge has been very 

 erratic in his decisions) can see why most of the awards in 

 a small class of varied quality have been made. 



These rules are : 



1. The character or characters that most conspicuously dis- 

 tinguish a type are given most consideration in judging. 



2. Color of plumage is given more consideration than shape, 

 unless some shape character is unusually striking. 



3. Quality in color of plumage consists in evenness and 

 purity of shade in solid-colored specimens, and in sound colors 

 and distinctness of the pattern in party-colored specimens. 



