76 The Canary. 



CHAPTER XI. 



OUR TURNCRESTS. 



[HERE is yet another variety of our favorite 

 songster which I must not omit to mention, or 

 which, perhaps, more correctly speaking, may 

 be found as it were by accident in most or all the kinds 

 we have named, to wit, the Turncrest. With some 

 people these are great favorites, more especially with 

 the lower classes of bird fanciers from whom anything 

 curious or novel appears to possess a great charm. 

 Their peculiarity consists in having a crest of feathers 

 on the top of the head turned, as it were, the wrong 

 way, and hanging down over the beak and eyes, some- 

 thing like an old-fashioned wool mop, or, if the asso- 

 ciation be not too irreverent, like the crop of a Cister- 

 cian monk. In general, as might be expected from the 

 above remarks, they will be found most plentiful 

 amongst the common low-bred birds of the country 

 districts, and associated with the greatest amount of 

 ugliness in the outline of their figure. To any one 

 with a cultivated taste or with a natural eye for beauty 

 of form, this condemns them at once ; but in propor- 

 tion as you can find this elegant appendage in birds of 

 more aristocratic breed, such as in the Belgians; of 

 course, this objection loses its point, and you will have 

 ^a bird of peculiar elegance and beauty. Such an one 



