The So-called "Old Dutch" Birds. 197 



abnegation of every feature held by them in common, and the adoption of characteristic physical 

 traits to which they have not the slightest claim ; the wide difference evidencing how remote 

 must have been the time when the cultivation of the abnormal form began. Here we must be 

 content to leave it. An old fancier of the variety, compared with whose oracular deliveries Jack 

 Bunsby's utterances are transparent, once told us, with an air of profound awe, that " they had 

 them in the Vatican" We feel that it would be nothing short of sacrilege to think of peering 

 through this delightful cloud of mystery. We are always grateful for information which goes to 

 support a belief that the Canary had once in his day aristocratic surroundings. 



Then, as opposed to these forms, all of which show some degree of culture, we have 

 occasionally presented to our notice a bird of an entirely different type which still claims to be 

 called a Belgian, because it hails from Belgium, though it sails under another flag and professes to 

 belong to the " Old Dutch '' school — a definition so comprehensive that it may mean a great deal 

 or nothing. What may have been the characteristics of this " Old Dutch " family we will not 

 attempt to determine, but we think that the name covers the whole of the crude forms of a long- 

 ago period when the bird was being first roughed out of raw material. There are several schools 

 of birds in Belgium, differing somewhat in minor points though all tending towards one ideal, but 

 we are not aware that any of the what we may term intermediate forms are recognised as 

 sub-varieties, and the " Old Dutch" now appears to be a haven in which any nondescript pattern 

 finds shelter. It reminds us of the P.M., "peculiar metre," embracing the whole outlying region 

 beyond long, common, and short, in old books of psalmody. The clerk in the quiet little Kentish 

 village in which we went to school used to telegraph to the choir by placing books on his reading 

 desk. One meant L.M., two CM., and three S.M. ; but when he built a complete rockwork of 

 books, and surmounted it by his snuff-box, a circular chest as big as a cheese-plate, we knew it 

 meant P.M., and looked out for something frantic. The " Old Dutch," the P.M. of the Belgian 

 variety, now-a-days seems to contain birds like nothing but themselves, unless it may be that they 

 can many of them compare favourably with the Lancashire Coppy in respect to size. In shape, 

 ungainly to a degree ; in position, neither upright nor anything else ; in feather, rough, coarse, and 

 disorderly to an extent which cannot be equalled for slovenliness. Cumbersome specimens 

 sometimes appear classed as Belgians at the Crystal Palace shows, which make one wonder whence 

 imported, or by what means so many objectionable features have become concentrated in one bird. 

 An inquiry as to the pedigree of these very unattractive examples usually elicits the response, 

 " Old Dutch ;" but such are certainly not the style of bird we would select with a view to utilise any 

 one feature of which they may be possessed. We repeat that we think these are only irregular 

 forms, and that others not quite so declared in their eccentricities, and which we have seen 

 described as existing varieties, are none the less so, and have no recognised status among the 

 finished specimens of Continental show-rooms — they are the "hocked " stock of the poultry -yard, 

 and nothing more. 



We have made no allusion to colour other than that it adds to the beauty of a good specimen. 

 In the way in which we understand colour, it has no existence in Belgium, having no more 

 appreciable value there than among the breeders of the Scotch Fancy in our own country. On the face 

 of it, this is attaching but very small worth to a feature that fanciers prize highly in almost every 

 variety ; but so it is. Nor is it difficult to account for an indifference which to an English fancier 

 seems surprising. We remember well our own feeling of — we will not call it surprise, but rather 

 describe it as something quite novel to us, when on our first visit to the great annual exhibition at 

 Glasgow, at which, including single birds and pairs, something like a thousand birds of the Scotch 

 Fr.ncy variety competed in the different classes, we found but one idea running through the whole, 



