oO PiGEuNS AND All About Them. 



Ijlace, It looks well if anyone comes to sec the stud ! 

 This is a big mistake in many ways. Visiting fanciers 

 would nuicn rather look at and handle one or two good 

 birds than a dozen second-raters. It is a mistake for 

 a 3'oung fancier to overload himself; he will get more 

 real pleasure from two or three pairs of birds than he 

 will from a dozen. With only a small number he can 

 learn much more than if he is overloaded. Again, 

 seeing that with most young fanciers money is a very 

 important consideration, it is far better to put the same 

 amount of money into two iiairs of birds than into a 

 dozen. 



" Quality, not quantity," should be the motto of 

 every aspirant to fame on the show bench. The chal- 

 lenge cup winner of an}' breed can only come from 

 one egg, and that it is just as likely to come from the 

 one egg laid by a hen owned b}' a novice as it is from 

 one of those owned b}' a champion exhibitor, " provided 

 always and at all times," as the gentleman learned in 

 ■ the law say, the quality is there. 



It must not for one moment be sui^posed that our 

 leading fanciers breed all their winners, even though 

 they have such tremendous studs. They do not. I 

 know of several champions which have won high 

 honours at the Dairy, Palace, and Specialist Club 

 Shows which have not been bred by the men who now 

 own them, but by small struggling working-men fan- 

 ciers who have received from the big guns a good 

 price for the flower of their flock ere parting with it 

 to the big exhibitor. But the big exhibitor would 

 not have required such had they not possessed quality. 

 The lesson to be learnt from this is — With all your 

 getting, get quality. 



HOW TO OBTAIN THE BIRDS. 



Having decided which variety he intends keeping 

 and how much money he will spend — the latter is quite 

 as important as the former — the young fancier should 

 seek out the best breeders of the particular breed that 

 he has decided upon. The best way to do this is to 

 read carefully the show reports ajipearing in the pages 

 of " Pigeons," also the advertisements of the particular 



