i6o 



Caxaries and Cage-Birds. 



We have been thus minute in our detail of every point, good, bad, and indifferent, which 

 belongs to the cap, because it is considered by some of our best breeders to be the feature 

 of the bird. We fully recognise its great importance, and when it is found absolutely faultless 

 would be disposed to award it a greater proportionate value than we should to a close approxi- 

 mation to perfection. Shape, size, and colour are frequently presented in the cap in a way 

 leaving little to be desired ; but there is generally a something wanting, which, if there, would 

 add an almost indefinite worth to the whole, so difficult to assess in any numerical valuation 

 of individual features. The point in which many otherwise perfect caps fail is in the delicate 

 hair-line above the eye, the "eyebrow," as it is familiarly termed. Sometimes it is present 

 on one side and not on the other, or may appear in a line wanting continuity ; but, under 

 any circumstances, the perfection of development is so rare that, as we explained in the preface 

 to our Norwich scales, it can only be represented by some indefinite number representing 

 the value of a well-balanced combined whole. 



We now pass on to what, with all respect to the cap, we consider to be the feature of features 

 in a Lizard ; viz., its spangling. We hold this opinion without any mental reservation whatever, 

 nor do we think this expression of our faith needs any defence. A Lizard having beautiful 



Fig- 49- 



spangling always has its value, even if the cap be very defective ; but let the cap be ever so 

 good and the spangling bad, and it is held in slight estimation. We do not wish to over- 

 estimate the value of the one or disparage that of the other, but we are heretical enough to say 

 that of the two we would prefer to see a well-spangled Lizard without a cap, rather than a good 

 cap without spangle. The one would still be a Lizard, but the other nothing. Our ideal is that 

 even balance is more difficult to obtain than excess of any one property ; but if asked what we 

 consider the essential feature of a Lizard, our answer is " Spangle." 



And what is spangle .■• We have in our opening remarks briefly referred to what is probably 

 spangling in its rudimentary form. An examination of a feather taken from the middle of the 

 saddle will show what it is in its developed shape. The flue of each feather — that is, the soft, silky 

 portion next the root of the quill — is entirely blue-black, and we may say here that as a standard 

 point the blacker the flue the better ; but as the feather finds its way to daylight, and the flue 

 assumes the character of feather proper, the colour changes, and the centre of the feather becomes 

 of black-brown, margined with a lighter shade, the central colour increasing in depth till it reaches 

 nearly to the extremity of the feather, where it expands into a circular form corresponding with 

 the outline of the feather, and is then as nearly a true black as possible. The marginal edging 

 also assumes a new tone, becoming of the shade we have described as the body-colour, its extreme 

 edge being fringed with a very narrow bordering of a still lighter shade, which in the Golden- 

 spangled bird is the same as the cap, and in the Silver has, in addition to what coloured edge it 

 may possess, an extreme outer verge of white, being, in fact, simply the buff or mealy form of the 



