THE NORWICH PLAINHEAD 209 



glistening, like unto a piece of highly finished silk. A 

 harsh, dry, cottony appearance is altogether out of place 

 in an exhibition Norwich, 



Colour is all that is now needed to make the bird I 

 have depicted a veritable champion. Colour at one time 

 was nearly three parts of the Norwich Plainhead. It 

 is not so to-day, but even yet it plays a great part in the 

 judges' decisions, and always will, because nothing 

 attracts the eye so much as colour. To meet the keenness 

 of present-day competition a winning Norwich needs to 

 be one rich golden orange tinge right through. This 

 needs to be both bred and fed for. 



There is nothing in the whole of the fancy which so 

 upsets the fallacy of the argument of those who say our 

 birds should be judged by points than this question of 

 colour. Only fifteen points are given to it in the standard, 

 yet judges there are, and exhibitors, too, who speak of 

 it as the chief feature of the breed. 



The First Essential — Type. 



We now come to the consideration of how to produce 

 the bird we have been describing, and the first essential 

 is type. 



Type comes in great measure from the hens ; therefore 

 the man who would be successful, and make a name as an 

 exhibitor and breeder, must study very carefully the up- 

 keep of a good stud of hens, and this can be done by never 

 breeding from hens which are narrow in head or body, 

 hens which are lacking in depth and width, hens which 

 are hard and harsh in feather, or hens which are clumsy 

 and awkward in gait. Unless a strain is carefully watched, 

 deterioration in size ^^dll set in, and the way to avoid 

 this is to keep away from cocks which, although they may 

 be brimful of colour and quality, are just a bit fine and 

 whippety in body. Such birds are nice to look at, but 

 they are not much use as producers of a race of birds 

 which are likely to win prizes. Type I want on both 

 sides, but especially in the hens. Strong, heavy 

 cock birds, which may perhaps be a trifle too long in body 

 or too coarse in feather, make splendid mates for those 

 neat, short, chubby, high-quahty hens which just fail a 



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