200 Cax-^.^^ies axd Cage- Birds. 



sensibly affecting the number of entries, and further, by opening the door for unscrupulous worK, 

 which may be either {a) showing very faintly-ticked birds in the Clear class, or (A) removing the 

 obnoxious tick, not less an insult to the bird than to morality. The Belgian is, of all Canaries, the 

 one which presents the least opportunity for the exercise of those skilful manipulations which 

 occasionally disgrace an exhibition : nothing can be added to or subtracted from its shape or 

 nervous energy, and it is derogatory to its dignity to ask it to compete on other conditions than 

 those peculiarly its own. 



Reverting now for a moment to the Variegated forms, we remark that the bird, never having 

 been bred with any ulterior view to variegation being taken into account in the slightest degree, this 

 property should possess the same value in an English show-room as on the Continent, and that is 

 «/7. It all comes to the same thing in the end. It is not a plumage bird. Variegation, considered 

 in its proper light as a natural sport or divergence from the dark self-colour, is to the Belgian 

 e.xactly what it is to the Norwich Canary, a thing of no value in the face of some higlier property, 

 viz., colour in the Norwich, and form in the Belgian. In the English Canary it has been 

 systematically reduced within prescribed limits ; in the Belgian bird, never. Occasionally a 

 specimen may chance to turn up which happens to be marked in the way we, in England, consider 

 to be the correct thing ; but such marking is not the result of systematic breeding in that direction, 

 any more than is the appearance of one such bird among a thousand Scotch Fancies in Glasgow. 

 On an English show-stage, where marking has a value, such a rara avis may be an object of 

 attraction, and may be, by some, supposed to be a representative of an established variety ; but it is 

 nothing of the kind. The best examples of marking, considered from our English standard, which 

 have ever been exhibited, have all been imported birds, and therefore cannot be regarded as 

 representatives of an established variety, since they have rrierely been the chance productions of 

 a system of breeding, the remotest thought in connection with which would be the idea of attaching 

 a value to such marking and seeking to perpetuate it. It does not follow from this that what we 

 would consider to be an exquisitely marked Belgian cannot be a high-class bird : anything but 

 that. We have occasionally had under our notice well-marked Belgians of the highest quality 

 possible. What we wish to show is that up to the present time the breeding of " Marked " birds, 

 according to the English standard, has not been attempted in Belgium ; that Clear and Variegated 

 have not even been separated; that such "Marked" birds as may from time to time have been 

 produced are not valued on account of their markings, but that all feather points have had to 

 succumb to the one ruling idea of Shape and Position. 



The possibility of being able to breed such birds and add them to our list of English 

 varieties as established forms, will occupy our attention in the proper place. Here we have only 

 endeavoured to show in what respect our English notions of the bird agree with those of our 

 Continental neighbours, and in what respect they differ, at the same time trying to show how the 

 popular idea may have received its impress from old associations, from which it is not easy to 

 disconnect it. 



The natural consequence resulting from this bird, which is virtually a stranger in a 

 strange land and not b7-cd among us as breeders should understand the word, being so 

 affected by its surroundings, is that it occupies a somewhat anomalous position. Even 

 though the occasional grouping of the Clear and Ticked forms has of late put these cla.sses 

 on a more satisfactory footing, yet the heavier forms of variegation still remain to be 

 dealt with in an equally common-sense way, and until they are, the Variegated Belgian 

 cannot be said to receive ordinary fair play at our hands. There are two ideas to be 

 exploded before this can be the case — the one that the Variegated bird is necessarily inferior 



