1 66 Can'aries and Cage-Birds. 



that the beginner may avoid the fatal error oi' attempting at one step to supply deficiencies in 

 either parent by the infusion of the required element entirely unsupported by such other good 

 properties as may already exist on the side in which there is a deficiency of the element proposed 

 to be supplied. We can, perhaps, make our meaning plainer by supposing a case. The beginner 

 has secured a good bird from a family habitually sound in colour and elaborate in spangle, but it 

 has a poor cap. For a mate he selects a bird of which he knows nothing but that it has a perfect 

 cap — the point he wants — but which is deficient in spangle and colour, and thinks to graft each 

 good property on the other. Such a false step as this may be taken at any period in a breeder's 

 history as well as at the commencement, and has frequently been done, to our knowledge, with the 

 most disastrous results, and, in consequence, a little quiet recrimination and covert reflection that 

 the imported cross obtained by a " friendly exchange " was not the " right thing." The result is 

 simply a failure. Our novice finds his colour and spangle utterly demoralised and his caps not 

 much improved. He has, in fact, let slip what he previously held — lost much and gained nothing : 

 lost much, because (see " Pedigree Breeding," Chapter XIII.) he has introduced into his habitually 

 well-spangled strain tendencies he knows nothing of; and gained little or nothing, because his 

 perfect cap may only have been an exceptional head in a poor lot, and the general effect of the 

 influx of " fresh blood " has been the inevitable reversion to long-lost faulty points of both parents. 

 Hence the importance of beginning with birds the produce of similar courses of breeding, and in 

 which the latent tendencies of each is known. 



When we were very young, almost in our nest-feathers, and in commencing early the study of 

 Mathematics were floundering about in the then, to us, mysteries of Algebra, a work of Cobbett's, in 

 which the subject was treated of in a series of letters to his son, was put in our hands, and one 

 thing in it we have never forgotten. At the end of each letter occurred an item of instruction of 



this kind: "Go back to Chapter , and study carefully the theories therein enunciated." We 



say the same in real earnest. Go back to Chapter XIII., and study carefully the theories therein 

 enunciated. Make them part of your morning study and your evening meditations. Commit them 

 to memory, and master their principles thoroughly. Illuminate them on scrolls and hang them in 

 your bedroom— bird-room, we mean ; in both, if you like. We thought we knew a great deal, but 

 we didn't know how little we did know till we studied them. They embody the briefest, simplest, 

 and clearest enunciation of the soundest principles of breeding with which we are acquainted. 



A few specific directions will now suffice for the breeder's guidance. They must be understood 

 to apply to the nicer distinctions in the mating of approved stock, and must always be considered 

 as subservient to general principles. Pair Gold with Silver always, as a rule. The advisability of 

 exceptional departures from this universal system will occasionally suggest itself to a thoughtful 

 mind in this as in any other variety in which quality of feather and colour are properties involved, 

 though here quality of spangle is also concerned. The gain from mating two Golds may be set 

 down as comprising improvement in colour and in brilliancy of spangle ; the loss, falling off in 

 size, want of compactness of feather, and consequent lack of regularity in arrangement of spangle 

 arising from the display of an excess of meal or silvery frosting, causing the bird to be too light, or 

 to have a cloudy, " mossy " back. Birds undecided in the character of their feather should be 

 mated accordingly — e.g., a dull Gold having white marginal fringe, pair with a bright Gold, not with 

 a Silver, which would probably only increase the fault, while there would, on the other hand, most 

 likely be found in such an undecided Gold so much colour, in addition to the close feather indicated 

 by the presence of the mealy fringe, as to warrant the expectation of something more than a mere 

 restoration of balance of power from a feather point of view only. 



As far as possible, pair dark birds. Don't break up a pet arrangement to do this, but try to 



