i82 Canaries and Cage-Birds. 



expressed by those who do not. We give another of Mr. Brodrlck's items of experience. " As 

 soon as the young birds can feed themseh'es, I do not reckon on losing more than one in a dozen, 

 and of the older birds (until they are six or seven years old) the annual mortality with me is not 

 above five per cent., and this generally with hens weakened by the breeding season, dying during 

 the subsequent moult. Two pairs gave me fifteen young ones last season, and all are now living." 

 That the bird has been a good deal in-bred, and has, probably, to some extent deteriorated 

 in consequence, it would be idle to deny ; but a hearty co-operation on the part of some of the 

 principal breeders has prevented even less of this than might be supposed, and the deterioration 

 is not so serious after all ; while the bird has at least this great merit — that, of the one or two 

 hundreds which remain, the pedigree of the greater portion is to a great extent known ; and the 

 bleeding, though carried on in such narrow limits, is really, by the very force of circumstances, 

 conducted on sounder principles than obtains in some varieties, and no beginner, let him procure 

 his first pair where he may, need start in the dark. There is a widely-spread prejudice against 

 in-breeding, amounting in some instances to a perfect horror, accompanied by an undefinable dread 

 of untold disastrous consequences sure to follow. The bare mention of such a thing is enough to 

 make some breeders' hair stand on end. Inquire of such a one if he ever tried it, and you get a 

 very emphatic and deprecatory no. Did he ever know any one who did ? A less emphatic no, 

 with just a faint glimmering that perhaps, after all, it might not be so bad as supposed. Then 

 zvliy does he assume it is so dangerous .' Well, it is ; it must be ; everybody says it is, and — and it 

 is ; of course it is. Instead of being so, it is the first step towards the concentration of latent 

 tendencies, and has laid the foundation of many beautiful forms. It has its limits, we know, and 

 in the case of the London Fancy Canary may have been carried, by the exigencies of the position, 

 further than usual ; but the best breeders, reliable, intelligent men, who have made the bird a life 

 study and have moulted from dark to grizzle and from grizzle to grey in the work, assure us the 

 case is greatly exaggerated, and that, from the stock at command, there is ample material with 

 which to build up the bird and rehabilitate it in all its ancient glory. 



In selecting stock, the breeder must bear in mind some traits in the bird worth a second 

 thought. It was not always what it is now ; and even In this day, small as is the remnant of the 

 race, there is still some diversity of type — a diversity sufficiently marked to show that the close 

 consanguinity supposed to exist throughout the entire tribe is, perhaps, not so close after all. 

 We do not wish to occupy one line more than is necessary on this subject ; but what constitutional 

 defect, if any, there may exist has been so exaggerated that we should not be doing our duty 

 to the wonderful little bird, or to the few breeders who still follow its declining fortune with an 

 enduring devotion worthy of the highest praise, if we did not do our best to champion it. We 

 shall make but one other allusion to this, and dismiss it. The case bears on the selection of 

 breeding stock, but will be additionally interesting to those who may regard it from a physiological 

 point of view. On page iii we quoted an axiomatic statement from Mr. Wright's "Pedigree 

 Breeding " to the effect that in qualities of constitutional character the physical degeneracy caused 

 by close breeding is almost always removed by one thorough cross ; but in a race of birds bred 

 for some pattern of feather or other fancy point such a cross with alien stock at once destroyed 

 all the creature is bred for, the feather or other point being at once lost. Now apply this to 

 Mr. Brodrlck's statement as to the result of the cross by which his strain was thrown back for 

 years, in the matter of the production of ticks or spangles previously absent ; evidencing that 

 the cross was thorough and alien, and not one of close consanguinity, which must have been the 

 case, from wherever obtained, if the in-breeding had become so complete as to have united the 

 whole tribe in one family. 



