196 Ca.varies axd Cage-Birds. 



knife by inserting it in a cork from which depend two forks. If the line of the back and tail, 

 instead of inclining at forty-five, stood at ninety, it would be a good bird ; but we always stop short 

 at the //in judging a Belgian and assign the conjunction no value in our scales — in fact, there is no 

 such thing as an if in a good Belgian. 



We might refer to many other types of this bird, all of which are familiar to fanciers of the 

 variety, in illustration of what is and what is not shape or position, but we will give only one more. 

 It is the lanky, scraggy — we cannot find better adjectives — stilty, acrobatic contortionist, whose 

 every feature is an exaggeration, lacking the harmony which deserves to be perpetuated in marble 

 or bronze. We are reminded the bird has plenty of neck — so has a crane : ditto shoulder, but we 

 see projecting pinions and a "spout" in the back in which we could bury our pencil : ditto legs, 

 but we think of a heron ; and so on throughout, its very " position " making its deformity only 

 more deformed. 



We do not hesitate to portray this form, even though it somewhat complicates the difficulty of 

 determining which of the two, shape or position, is the more important feature : possibly they are 

 more intimately connected than is generally imagined, being mutually dependent to an extent that 

 renders it difficult to define with positiveness the precise domain of each, and leading to the conclu- 

 sion that there is more included in the idea of "position" than is understood by the abstract idea of 

 posture. It is, in fact, a comprehensive term implying the notion of being able to exhibit certain 

 developments of shapes or forms of individual parts which do not lie on the surface, and which can 

 only be done by birds having a particular physical conformation. The links are so carefully 

 welded that it is not easy to discover the joint. On one occasion, when we were judging at an 

 exhibition in the North, at which there was a strong muster of Belgians of widely-differing types, 

 our colleague began, as all judges do, by making a preliminary examination of the whole, giving 

 each cage the little scratch which follows as the hand instinctively finds its way under the cage- 

 bottom. After a little observation, and without removing a bird from the stage where it stood not 

 four feet from the ground, he made his selections, and they were just the selections we expected he 

 would make under the circumstances — three neat, but very lively birds of good feather and colour. 

 We made altogether a different selection, taking, to begin with, a somewhat ungainly subject, as it 

 appeared when unroused, but which showed evidences of quality, and we proposed placing our respec- 

 tive selections side by side on the wall for the purpose of comparing notes. At first our colleague 

 objected to this, alleging it was not fair to try them in such a way, and contending that they should 

 be judged where they stood. Of course we could not put up with such nonsense as that; and after a 

 little trouble got our own way so far as to have a few nails put in the wall and the competing birds 

 hung side by side. Then our friend began, and, being a much older man, talked to us with 

 parental earnestness, enumerating all the " points " of a Belgian from the tip of his beak to the tip 

 of his tail; to all of which we listened patiently, and then reminded him he had altogether failed to 

 show that his representative was a true Belgian at all. We contended that the birds must first be 

 put into " position " in order to exhibit their " points," and that then, when fully displayed, a 

 comparison could be instituted. The result was that our quondam undemonstrative selection 

 showed itself to possess an astonishing configuration nothing in its class could approach. 



Respecting the origin of this remarkable configuration we have no reliable data, but from what 

 was stated in the notes prefacing this chapter respecting the style of bird in vogue a generation 

 back, we think it is only a reasonable deduction to infer that the bird of our day is the result of .a 

 carefully-worked-out system of development of some abnormal form which must have been in 

 existence from very early times. It will be seen from our description that it stands alone, 

 diflering from i::MU-y other variety we have hitherto noticed in the important particulars of entire 



