266 Canaries axd Cace-Dirds. 



whose patience has passed into a proverb, or satisfy himself that that virtue has been a fixed 

 trait in the strain from which he is descended, he had better not vex his soul with Mule- 

 breeding. The next indispensable — and it is the indispensable of indispensables — is to procure 

 the right class of hens, that is, hens which will throw Pied Mules. If it be wished to breed 

 only Dark birds, any description of hen will answer ; but the larger, more stylish, and richer 

 in colour the hen, the more likely is it that corresponding good points will be found in the 

 Mules ; and note also that yellow hens are to be preferred before buff. We have read 

 recipes for compounding hens for muling purposes, elaborated with e.xtreme care, in which 

 each ingredient is weighed out as carefully as if for making pills ; but we regard them as 

 utter nonsense. It is difficult to say what a Canary would be like if compounded of such a 

 heterogenous mixture as we have seen authoritatively recommended, but we do know that it 

 would be most unlike any representative of various muling strains which have come under our 

 observation. And further, if trustworthy hens could be made to order, good Mules would soon 

 become plentiful, whereas we never in all our experience met with a show-bird bred from a 

 hen compounded of mule-breeding-in-six-lessons materials. Many theories have been pro- 

 pounded to explain why certain strains of hens produce Pied Mules, and synthetic analysis 

 has tried to show how such hens can be built up, the prepotency of concentrated tendencies 

 being the principle underlying every process suggested or boldly stated to be infallible. We 

 have always found fallibility — extreme fallibility — to be the strong point of these manufactured 

 "strains." It does not follow that because Mule-breeders never on any account introduce any 

 cross into an approved strain for fear of altering its character, in-and-in breeding from a strain 

 of 710 character if carried on for ever will have the opposite effect or do other than fi.x its 

 negative properties ; and though close, persistent inter-breeding may result in the production 

 of some mysterious element favourable for the development of the desired idiosyncrasy, we 

 have not met with an instance within the sphere of our observation in which the process has 

 in actual fact been brought to a successful issue. 



How muling hens have originated we cannot undertake to explain. Starting with the 

 knowledge that ninety-nine out of a hundred hens will throw only Dark self-coloured Mules, 

 it may be that the singular phenomenon of one throwing Variegated birds may have attracted 

 attention, and, by careful breeding in the same family, a strain may have been established 

 having a tendency to throw Variegated rather than Dark birds. The rationale of the matter 

 may form subject for intelligent discussion, but we have now to deal with facts. Such birds 

 exist in various parts of the country, and that is all we know ; but of the many breeders we 

 have rubbed shoulders with in our day, we have not met one who ventured to say he had 

 built up his strain out of notliiiig by simply in-breeding. The tendency must be there to begin 

 ivilh. 



The best muling hens we have here in the North — and we hail from the Wear — are 

 either Clear, with pink eyes (indicating Cinnamon), or Variegated Cinnamons or Variegated 

 Greens bred from Cinnamons of the old-fashioned dove-coloured type. They are not large 

 birds, but, on the contrary, are in many instances very insignificant in fcize and general 

 appearance, destitute of any pretensions to colour, and, but for the special purpose to which 

 they are applied, valueless as Canaries. They vary, however, in these respects according to 

 the strain. A fundamental rule most scrupulously observed is that no cross of a?ty kind, 

 not even of any noted and recognised strain of muling stock, shall ever be allowed to taint 

 the blood, and more than one breeder of our acquaintance has bred in-and-in without a shadow 

 of a -ross for thirty years or more. To procure these hens is not easy, nor is it a matter for 



