Scarcity of Really Clear Mules. 271 



greatness or the opposite, and it is at this stage of growth that rumours of a Clear Mule having 

 been born into the world disturb the horizon in private circles. A promising yearling with a 

 Derby nomination excites scarcely more interest, and he must indeed be a privileged friend of 

 the stable who is allowed just one peep through the magnifier, which, like other magnifiers, only 

 too frequently raises hopes and prospects of future success destined never to ripen into fruition. 

 Fortunate is the man, despite the agony of his bereavement, whose bantling is sweated, smothered, 

 starved, or choked out of existence thus early, before it has lived long enough to destroy all 

 his air-castles, and teach another of the thousand-and-one lessons that appearances are deceitful. 

 You meet your friend in the street, pale, haggard, and worn out with days of anxiety and 

 sleepless nights of weary watching in costume of rheumatic proclivities. It is needless to 

 speculate on the cause ; the Mule has gone home. You can only wring his hand in mute 

 sympathy, and leave him to go on his solitary way, feeling thankful to know that in his own 

 pedigree there are two or three good strains of the patriarchal blood, and hoping that the exercise 

 of the virtue inherent in the family will some day meet its reward. It would be worse than unkind 

 not to respond to the heart-broken request to " call and see it," and you go to the house of 

 mourning to find the bird of so much promise stretched out on the window-sill of the bird-room, 

 a cold, clammy little cherub which, had it lived, might have turned out just what it is now, 

 nobody knows what, but quite likely as worthless as its brothers and sisters in the same nest, 

 black as sloes, and refusing to die. It is at this interesting stage of their existence that most 

 Clear (.'') Mules do die; and v/ell it is that they do, for it keeps alive a hope which would be 

 crushed out of most men if they lived to mock their anticipations. It is a sort of hallucination 

 some men labour under to imagine they have bred Clear Mules without end ; and, as is often the 

 case with people who deal largely with the marvellous, the story is told and re-told so frequently 

 that the narrators in course of time come to believe it true, even if no one else does. We are very 

 charitable in our estimate of the bona fides of some of the stories we are asked to credit, because 

 the supposition that the young Mules really are as represented arises in a great measure from 

 ignorance as to the correctness of the estimate it is possible to form of the true character of 

 any light Mule in the early stages of its life. Dark Selfs can be recognised early enough, and 

 the broader forms of variegation as soon as the small black specks which subsequently develop 

 into dark feathers appear on the naked wings and elsewhere ; a narrow line down the back of 

 the neck, for instance, indicating at the least a dark saddle, if not an entirely dark back ; but 

 beyond reading correctly the ultimate character of these clearly-defined indications, the most 

 experienced judge can determine nothing certain of a young bird at the age of ten days or a 

 fortnight. It may be seen that there will be eye-marks of a kind, but whether large, small, 

 distinct, broken-up, or well-pencilled, no one can say. A very foul breast may be foretold 

 sufficiently early to damp the breeder's hopes and put him out of his misery at once ; but the 

 smaller and less distinct markings, such as discolorations on the cheeks or neck, are from the 

 very nature of the plumage invisible till the growth is comparatively matured, while a host of 

 defects, which might stamp an apparently Clean bird anything but Clean, may appear in minute 

 but palpable shape long after their existence has been deemed almost an impossibility. The 

 reason of this is because the discoloration of the body-feather altogether differs in character 

 from that of the Canary, where we have only to deal with the presence of the native green, which 

 shows itself in a less subtle form than do some of the more delicate tones in a Hybrid, in which 

 matured feather, in other respects clear, frequently develops a minute edging of darker colour, 

 so minute and delicate as only to be discerned by a practised eye on the clear yellow or snowy 

 white ground, and yet sometimes covering a considerable area, and declaring its character by its 



