158 CANARIES 



point in either cock or hen, and try to remedy that faihng 

 by pairing it with a bird correspondingly strong in this 

 particular point. I do not mean that you are not to pair 

 a couple of birds together that are about perfect, that is 

 if you are fortunate enough to possess them. If you are 

 fortunate enough to possess really tiptop exhibition birds 

 by all means mate them, but, recognising the rarity of this, 

 there being very few birds which do not fail (if only in a 

 minor degree) in some given point, the breeder must, to 

 properly match his birds, be ever on the look-out for 

 these little weaknesses in one bird, and try to strengthen 

 the weak places in the way I have indicated, by balanc- 

 ing them by extra strength on the other side. 



For instance, I should advise mating a long leggy cock 

 to a smart, close-feathered, typical, active hen. At the 

 same time I may say I have bred good birds with pairs 

 just the opposite, viz., smallcock and long hen. When 

 I say a long leggy cock, I mean a bird of good length 

 from beak to tail, with long, tapering body, long flights 

 and long tail, each in proportion to the other, and not a 

 cock with a long neck, abnormally long tail and a short 

 body chopped off close behind its legs. Such a bird may 

 be of standard length, or even more, but it will be ungainly 

 and out of proportion as its length will be in neck and 

 tail, and thus there will be no true symmetry. In a 

 general way, strong lusty cocks that are a bit coarse or 

 overdone in feather should be mated to very finely 

 drawn typical hens a bit under-sized. In such cases the 

 hen will correct the coarseness of the cock. Size and 

 colour come from the cocks ; type, especially heads and 

 quality of feather, from the hens. This is the general 

 rule ; there are exceptions to this, as to every other rule, 

 but one can only speak generally when advising in a 

 work of this character. 



Mating Clear and Variegated Birds. 



Most fanciers are agreed on the principle of matching 

 clear and marked birds. By so doing colour is maintained 

 and also the quality or fineness of feather. There is 

 no doubt whatever that the continual breeding together 

 of clear, or clear and ticked birds results in loss of colour 



