BXAMPLE OF OLD FANCIERS. 57 



it is desired to refresh. Then the best bird of the produce should 

 be selected for the actual cross. By this means much risk is 

 avoided, and much time may eventually be saved, since it may 

 take years to finally get rid of the results of any rash experi- 

 ment which turns out badly. 



The method of breeding which has been here described has 

 been more or less followed by all practical fanciers, though it is 

 doubtful if the reasons for it have been clearly understood. One 

 quotation will suffice to show this, from Eaton's well-known re- 

 production of the " Treatise on the Almond Tumbler.'' This bird, 

 as is well known, is bred for five main points or " properties," 

 viz., head, beak, eye, shape or carriage, and feather ; without 

 all which no pigeon is perfect. But observe what is said in the 

 Treatise : — " There are young fanciers who are over-covetous, 

 who go for all tlieji/oe properties at once ; they hwve tlievr rewa/rd 

 by getting nothing." The reason is not explained ; but the 

 fact had been discovered by repeated experience, and such a 

 statement of it may fitly close our own remarks upon the 

 subject. We trust these may have made clear what an amount 

 of intellectual gratification is to be derived — quite apart from 

 any mere success at exhibitions — ^in watching the steady pro- 

 gress of a strain towards a determined point ; and how the 

 individuality of a breeder must ultimately become stamped 

 upon it, so that his birds, or other animals, can, by intangible 

 but perceptible features, be distinguished from those of others, 

 and become knowii as his own. The strange power man 

 possesses of thus moulding other animals to his will, is a mys- 

 terious approach, though in lower degree, to the divine opera- 

 tion shown in the creation of species j and a similar, though 

 lower example of the power of intelligent Will to modify, not 

 only the inorganic world, but actual forms of Ufe. 



