CHAPTER XV. 



BREEDING CRESTED NORWICH. 



Our pathway here is somewhat clearer and freer from difficulties than we found it in our last 

 chapter. The reader will, however, think we have only a very moderate estimate of his mental 

 calibre if we again preface our observations on breeding this, the last of the many branches of the 

 Norw^ich family, by saying he must first have a definite notion of what he is really going to do. 

 To breed Crested Norwich birds, to be sure ! Just so; but then there are so many forms of Crested 

 Canaries which lay claim to this title that it is not easy to say which are legitimate representatives 

 and which among them hold their position only upon sufferance. In all the other ramifications of 

 this great Norwich tree a most rigidly exacting demand is made for a display of the leading 

 characteristics of the family, little or no departure from them being permitted ; and in no variety 

 is less latitude allowed than in this, when it comes to anything like competition between specimens 

 boasting blue blood. Although some profess to fail to discover anything but a vulgar beauty 

 in the orange livery, yet no outline must be more carefully chiselled, no clothing cut with greater 

 care or woven with material of finer texture, while the slightest suspicion of tell-tale features 

 , indicating descent, however remote, from some foreign race, is sufficient to remove the possessor 

 beyond the pale of respectable society, and is an effectual bar to his introduction among the 

 upper ten of a community as exclusive in its way as any section of the Canary world. 



But the Crested variety (which term we think we might qualify by the addition of the word 

 Modern) being a made-up one, an acknowledged combination of Norwich and crest, obtained from 

 some source or other — indeed, from any source, provided only that the crest be worth grafting — it 

 is not to be expected that among the varied forms included in it there will be found the presence 

 of Norwich properties in excess ; and, taking the class right through, considerable deviation from 

 the Plainheaded type will frequently be discernible. These deviations are all evidences of various 

 methods of breeding pushed on in one direction or another in search of the one feature without 

 which the bird is valueless, much fresh ground having been broken up in this way of late years with 

 very pleasing results. We cannot refrain from remarking, in passing, that if as much energy were 

 bestowed on the birds forming the subject of our last chapter, we should see the fruits in the shape 

 of marking of a more fixed kind, accompanied by even less objectionable features than we find 

 among the Crests, inasmuch as the sources from which marking is to be obtained are more in 

 unison with the general character of the Norwich bird than are some of the rougher elements 

 too frequently the accompaniments of good crest development. We feel quite sure that in the 

 course of a few years the standard of these birds will be much raised : the tendency is in that 

 direction, every season showing a great improvement in the quality of the bird and a corresponding 

 advance in the quality of the crest — two things which it is exceedingly difficult to advance at one 

 and the same time, because, as will have been seen by those who have carefully studied our 

 remarks on the Crested variety in Chapter XII., good crest and high Norwich properties are the 

 results of different forms of feather, the difficulty being to combine them in such an harmonious 

 way that, while endeavouring to secure the one, we do not lose the other. We will proceed to 

 show the best methods to be pursued, and in doing so we recommend crest-breeding as one of 



