Prince Charming and his Charming Princess. 71 



depreciating the hard and close-feathered kind, which, 

 as a general rule, I think are to be preferred. The 

 latter are much more easily obtained, and got into fine 

 feather than the former; but if you can get a bird 

 whose plumage is this flossy texture and not broken, 

 or thin and weak, but lying on it like a heavy piece of 

 wool, and of the colour I have described above, we 

 think you should not neglect the opportunity of pur- 

 chasing if you wish to have a beautiful canary ; at all 

 events, we sorely repented neglecting the chance we 

 had, and have never seen another since at all to equal 

 him in the richness of his colour. 



Weeks passed away without seeing anything that 

 particularly attracted our notice, or incited our in- 

 clination to purchase, when at length Mr. M bought 

 a large lot of birds of a breeder in Yorkshire, and 

 amongst them a bird very nearly resembling the one 

 we have just described. Indeed, with the exception 

 that he was not quite so deep in his colour, he was all 

 that we could desire. Though of the Belgian breed, 

 and very beautiful, he was not what would be called a 

 fancier's bird, having no great development in that in- 

 dispensable point, the shoulder. Still, take him for all 

 in all, with the exception of the bird just mentioned, I 

 think he is as handsome a canary as I ever saw in my 

 life. Full seven inches in length, he has the appear- 

 ance and drooping shape of a peacock when at rest, 

 the curving outlines of his body being of the most 

 elegant and tapering form ; with a head like a snake 

 and an eye like a hawk, he bears himself proudly 

 amongst his fellows, over whom he exercises a lordly 



