54 THE PRACTICAL PIGEON KEEPER. 



may answer ; but, for reasons already seen, it is not advisable 

 when the other pair is a total cross. (3.) They may be matched 

 inter se, brother to sister; and this answers well when there 

 has been no previous inter-breeding. (4.) They may be matched 

 with young birds from another pair. If there are good birds 

 enough, and there is room in the loft, we advise all these plans 

 being pursued, by which all degrees of temper in the strains 

 first started with may be secured, and enough crosses obtained 

 at once to last for many years. But in all cases, whenever 

 any pair of birds has been found to breed extraordinarily well, 

 it is best to keep them together as long as they will breed. 

 The birds themselves will thus get thoroughly settled together, 

 which facilitates successful rearing of young. 



The second year's breeding should show some advance, not, 

 perhaps, in the actual development of the most desired points in 

 any one bird, but rather in the proportion of birds which exhibit 

 a satisfactory development of them. It cannot be too well 

 remembered that this — the proportion of good birds — is the real 

 test of progress in a strain. What is called " good blood " is 

 now so widely distributed by sales from various lofts, that ex- 

 traordinary birds sometimes occur by what can— so far as any 

 human skill or method is concerned — only be called chance. 

 We have already seen that such are of little comparative value 

 in reproducing their like ; but any perceptible increase in the 

 proportion which show fair quality, represents real ground 

 gained and real work done, and there is the greater probability 

 that birds showing more than fair quality will appear. Further 

 advance still will be made the third year ; indeed, it will now 

 be found that (in all but one or two of the most " high-class " 

 varieties) the one or two cardinal points have become, to a very 

 fair extent, certain in the new strain. And now mark the 

 result. The proportion of birds which show these will be now so 

 large, that out of them there will be little difficulty in selecting 

 for breeding those fairly perfect in the neost most important points. 



