Defective Types of Belgians. 



gentility it will come out ; but if it be not there, all the training that can be brought to 

 bear will not develop that which does not exist. A high-bred young bird, when sitting on 

 the nest-edge, can be made to show to a surprising degree what promise it has of future 

 greatness, and there can be no "training" here. Only bad birds require much training, and 

 they never pay for the trouble. The best they can do is to make an attempt at standing upright, 

 then twitch their tails and hop up and down like a robin on a spade-handle, then flourish 

 against the sides of the cage, and wind up with a general fluster. Such are not Belgians. 

 They may have neat heads and other respectable properties, but lacking the "guinea stamp," 

 it is no use testing the quality of the metal any further. 



On the subject of " training," so far as it is necessary, we shall have something to say 

 in its proper place. 



And then there are one or two other types of birds sometimes shown as Belgians. 

 There is one which stands up after a fashion of its own, such as it is, much after the style 

 of an owl, with about the same amount of neck, and, what there is of it, very suggestive 

 of apoplexy. This class of bird often has the merit of close, fine feather — a property 

 always desirable, but which does not constitute " position " nor make a Belgian. And there is 

 a bird a little higher up the ladder. Its strong point is its leg ; indeed, it has no other unless 

 it may be a little shoulder. This class of bird is generally very seedy. We don't remember 

 ever seeing one young. It has an air of faded gentility about it, and with its scaly shins, 

 indicative of age, reminds one of some dilapidated old fellow with just a little blue blood in 

 him. Without much persuasion it strikes a favourite attitude something in the way we have 

 seen other bipeds do : left leg bent backwards with the knee well in ; right leg with knee 

 projecting and a graceful curve from the hip, with a kind of this-style-all-wool-only-sixteen- 

 shillings sort of expression. Such are not all wool, nor is this " position." There is also the 

 bird of mercurial temperament, which won't stand still without grasping the wires" at the side of 

 its cage with one foot. There is also its opposite, the phlegmatic subject, whose mountain of 

 shoulder and fine lines, generally, are enough to drive one crazy, but which won't get up, even in 

 reply to our most persuasive solicitations and a considerable expenditure of finger-nails, main- 

 taining the most provoking indifference and utter disregard for its reputation, a grand specimen of 

 a sublimely lethargic Deutschlander, whose very chirrup, when he so far rouses himself as to give 

 one, seems to savour of obstinacy and contradiction, and spells " 7iein ;" not a bad stamp of bird, 

 nevertheless, as he demonstrates after allowing all the honours of the show-room to pass away 

 from him, by rearing himself for a few moments, just long enough to assert himself and vex, by 

 showing he belongs to a class which won't try when wanted or begin to race till past the post. 

 And there is to be met with the bird that is constantly " up," the irrepressible Belgian, full of go if he 

 could only go in decent form ; generally an angularly-built, undersized bird with a little breeding 

 cropping through the surface in strange places ;. smart and clever in some respects, but merely a 

 butcher's pony among high-class company ; useful as a hack, and a likely specimen to earn railway 

 expenses and entrance fees at second-rate shows ; full of nerve and always willing to do his best, 

 but vulgar withal, and wanting the port and presence, the ease and repose, indicative of high 

 breeding. Not uncommon, also, is the bird which will bear critical dissection tolerably well, and 

 would, measured by a scale of disjointed points, sum up a respectable total, but which spoils all by 

 persistently standing in a posture in which the shoulders are the vertex of an angle formed b}' the 

 lines of the neck, back, and tail deported in such a manner that they seem to depend like counter- 

 balancing weights, bringing the centre of gravity below the base and causing the bird to poise 

 itself on its straight legs something in the same way in which a coin is balanced on the edge of a 



