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Canaries and Cage-Birds. 



prescribed limits. The idea of broken, of course, attaches also to ticks or patches of dark colour 

 remote from the margin, but a run cap has but the one meaning we have endeavoured to make 

 plain. In two words, the one is an encroachment on, and the other an encroachment of, the cap. 



That this constant inclination in the direction of irregularity should exist in the Lizard cap we 

 take to be one argument in favour of its being not so much a developed native property as a chance 

 feature requiring constant attention, the large proportion of broken caps as compared with the 

 number of run examples showing a determined tendency to revert to a form in which, probably, the 

 cap would be entirely absent, as is sometimes the case in exceptional specimens even now. 





We furnish illustrations of the most common forms assumed by defective caps. Fig. 45 

 represents a decided patch of spangling in the centre, and speaks for itself It is not always, 

 however, so clearly defined as in the cut, but may assume the character of a minute tick, consisting, 

 in fact, of but a single feather. When such tick is clearly isolated and detached from the 

 surrounding margin, the blemish is more plainly seen, and offends the eye more than would an 

 equally trifling irregularity in the margin, unless it existed immediately over the beak, in 

 which position it destroys the effect of a clear surface as much as if found in the centre. A 

 tick so situated cannot, hov/ever, be regarded as a strictly marginal blemish, since there is 



no area of feathers between the front of the cap and the beak, and there cannot, therefore, 

 be any intrusion. Dark feathers in this place, therefore, have all the weight of isolated spots; 

 and with respect to such, wherever found or of whatever extent, there is but one law against 

 which there is no appeal : they determine a foul cap. Fig. 46 also represents a form of 

 broken cap unmistakable in its character. This is an intrusion, and something more than 

 a mere marginal irregularity, a great portion of the area of the cap being absorbed by the 

 encroachment of the dark neck-feathers in a solid, unbroken mass. We have given this 

 illustration for a twofold purpose — to exemplify this particular form, and to show clearly the 

 difference between it and Fig. 47, representing a run cap, in which the clear colour is seen 

 running over and down the back of the neck. 



