Difficulty of Maintaining Colour. 183 



The difference in type to which we refer consists in the amount of dark feather, or what was 

 formerly known as spangle, present after the first moult, and which varies according to the strain. 

 It appears to have been a standard property in former days, and we find it occupying a place in 

 an old list of show-points, supplemented by an explanatory remark as to its character — viz., for 

 " distinctness." This is fully borne out in old treatises, where the bird is generally referred to by 

 the name of " Spangled Back," or some such synonymous term, supporting Mr. Brodrick's account 

 of the condition in which he found it thirty-five years ago. Brent, in his interesting little book, 

 also refers to this old form and laments its decline. " I am sorry," he says, " to see the fanciers 

 departing from the standard of excellence laid down in their own rules, and losing sight of the 

 ticks or spangles on the back and the dark colour of the legs and down." There has evidently 

 been a radical change in the standard, for what we find to have been, in the earlier times, a point of 

 excellence; we now hear nothing of unless in connection with a desire to eradicate it ; and when we 

 remember that this spangle consisted of not much more than, at the best, a grizzly plumage 

 caused by the partial retention of the dark stem and a portion of the adjacent web — really only a 

 washed-out form of the original feather, destitute of any marked character, and most probably 

 only the ghost of the expiring embers of real spangle inherited from its ancestor the Lizard (a 

 ghost very hard to lay, and which appears to like to visit its old haunts, uninvited, in a more or 

 less shadowy form) — we cannot be surprised at the eradication of these ticks having been thought 

 desirable. This we take to have been done by system, and not to have resulted from misadventure, 

 and do not regard it in the light of a misfortune to be laid at the door of the scapegoat, abstract 

 in-breeding, which has to bear the weight of no end of .shortcomings, real or fancied, of this little- 

 understood bird. 



In endeavouring to breed up to the modern standard, the theory of colour-development and 

 sustentation will require to be worked out with care. The clear-bodied bird must be regarded as the 

 perfected development, and the ticked or spangled body as the raw material. To breed the former 

 from the latter would not be a task of very great difficulty if notJiing else were demanded, especially 

 in the present state of the ticked bird, which is already a long way on its journey. Selection 

 would soon tell its story in a palpable way, and we should have nothing else to advise, as a means 

 to this end, than insisting on a persistent selection of the clearest specimens. The consequence of 

 this, however, would be that the gradual approach to a clear body would be accompanied by 

 gradual loss of colour. And not only this, but inasmuch as brilliant black wings and tail mean 

 rich body-colour, a decline in the latter would mean a falling off in the other most important 

 features. A strain of high-coloured clear-bodied birds might be maintained with a fair degree 

 of excellence for some time by mating the highest-coloured specimens, but the most careful 

 management would not result in much increase of colour, if indeed anything more were effected than 

 simply maintaining it for a while. We mean maintaining it in that rich form which supervenes 

 upon the departure of the last trace of dark feather, for we do not mean to convey the idea that 

 colour in a carefully-bred, slowly but surely built up strain would, if unsupported, at once fade 

 away ; but remember that the tendency has been encouraged and is progressive ; at each step 

 colour has been supported, and if no longer supported must slide. Mr. Brodrick says, with much 

 point, " There is a top to the ladder, and those near the top are inclined to give you progeny not 

 quite so high up. I would rather breed with a full brother of a first-prize bird, even if not quite 

 perfect, provided only he was not ' foul,' than with the prize bird himself" 



The position, then, is this : a clear body has to be £i(5-tained, and at the same time colour has 

 to be r^-tained, and finally ;««z«-tained. And what is the material at command t All London 

 Fancy stock may be classed under one or other of two heads — viz., " strong-coloured " and " fin§- 



