PIGEONS AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 37 



points that exist in no otlier variety and liow to best bring out 

 these points takes study and it takes perseverance. 



For this very reason the ambitious fancier who soars higli, 

 spends lots of money for liigh-priced birds and expects (and 

 without any prior knowledge) to Ijreed nothing but show 

 birds, "goes up like a locket and comes down like a stick," 

 wliile his plodding fancier lirother, with no wealth to aid him 

 ))ut endowed with a rugged jjcrseverance, goes slowly along, 

 Iput always up, breeds better and better birds each year and 

 linalh' winds up at the top of the ladder. 



I often think tliat fanciers are born and not made, for I 

 have seen so many wlio seemed to l>e endowed with all the 

 instincts of the true fancier and yet there was a something 

 lacking and they soon dropped out of the ranks. 



And all this bears me out in my original argument as to 

 breeding one variety. If it is so hard to succeed with only 

 one variety what must be the task of the nui.n who tries to 

 breed a dozen, 



But to go back to the selection of a variety. This is the 

 time to go slow and even if a man had his loft all ready and 

 his feed bought I think it would still be good policy and 

 money made (to say nothing of time saved) for him to take a 

 trip around to several lofts. My word for it, he might fluctuate 

 between a dozen or twenty varieties, but sooner or later he 

 would settle on one and he would find that it was the type 

 that first struck him. 



I'll venture that if you pLit a strange breeder whom I never 

 saw and of whom I know nothing, in a big show room and let 

 me watch him half an hour I can tell what he breeds. He 

 may wander up and down the alleys in a general way, but 

 will always wind up in front of tlie cages containing his 

 sjiecialty. 



I believe that if lie breeds lialf a dozen varieties I can tell 

 tbt) one in which he is most interested. 



