CHAPTER XXVIir. 



TIIK LANCASHIRE COPPY. 



The last, but certainly not the least, either in size or importance, of the exhibition Canaries which 

 will pass under our review, is the Lancashire Coppy. He comes of a high family and is of good 

 repute, and ever has held and does to this day hold his plumed head far above that of the Chief 

 of any other tribe. What may be the heraldic devices of his family coat of arms we are not able 

 to say ; we rather incline to the belief that it has been quartered with that of some other noble 

 family, probably the "Old Dutch," an ancestry sufficiently remote to be very respectable, and 

 shrouded in just enough of fog to render it difficult to clear it up, not an uncommon trait in many 

 pedigrees. The family crest, however, has always been "a shako, or" and the motto "Eraut olim 

 gigantes!' the two sufficiently indicating the character of the bird in the olden time, a character 

 its descendants have maintained in its integrity. 



The word " Coppy," which signifies a crest or topping, and must not be confounded with copy, 

 is also of ancient extraction, and requires no further explanation, its connection with the bird 

 being plain. The prefix " Lancashire " seemed at one time as if it were on the point of being 

 superseded by " Manchester," the bird having for some years been so described in exhibition 

 schedules. We have used the word superseded, but we are not sure it is appropriate, for we are 

 not aware that the bird was originally known by other than the generic name Coppy without any 

 prefix ; but when the word Manchester began to come into general use, the Lancashire breeders 

 of Oldham, Rochdale, Ashton-under-Lyne, and other towns where the bird is extensively and 

 almost exclusively cultivated, feeling jealous of a county honour being, as they contended, 

 bestowed on any one town, even though it were the great Cottonopolis itself (where they maintained 

 the bird was not bred in any numbers), entered their protest against the assumption of the title, 

 and making out a good case, secured for the bird the name which is now becoming generally 

 recognised, although it will take some time to obliterate all recollection of the one by which, in 

 the absence of any other of universal adoption, it was rapidly becoming known, and by which it is 

 still called by some of its partisans. The balance of power, however, was with the county; and, 

 on the principle that the many should rule the few in such cases, we adopt the prefix Lancashire, 

 though the other had, in the course of years, grown to be a familiar household word with us. 



This Canary is bred chiefly in the busy centres we have just referred to, and also in the sur- 

 rounding district, where towns numbering thousands of inhabitants extend their borders at such a 

 rapid rate and elbow their neighbours in such a bustling way, that it is not easy to say where one 

 leaves off and another begins. Here, the Coppy reigns conjointly with its companion, the Plain- 

 head, and, though one of the most interesting birds in the whole Canary family and second to none 

 in its individuality, is essentially the most local specialty in the entire fancy, seldom travelling 

 far from home, and still less frequently beyond the bounds of its county, to which fact alone is 

 to be attributed its comparative want of popularity. It is a bird which has hitherto been nursed 

 principally by local working men's clubs, being generally exhibited under the auspices of some 

 local society at the "house" where its meetings are held. These shows are very general in 



