48 



such cases the judge furnishes a detailed report of his personal 

 opinion of the more prominent teams, and such pronouncement often 

 directs into the right line of action a breeder whose inexperience 

 has led him astray. To know where his best productions are at fault 

 is a long step towards the remedy. 



Again, a rising man may only have had one or two insignificant 

 prizes among his dozen exhibits, but he rejoices on learning that his 

 strain has improved generally, and is now deemed worthy of a 



TEAM PRIZE, 



which generally consists of a special money prize, another long step 

 towards subsequent success with individual competitors for the 

 higher honours. 



It requires immense oral practice to be able to adjudicate upon 

 the collective merit of one team against another, especially when 

 there happen to be five or six teams, each excelling in a particular 

 and distinct combination of song tours. No two strains produce 

 the same repertoire, yet all they utter may be irreproachable. 



The song of each member of a strain has a family likeness to that 

 of the other members. Such tours as they produce among them- 

 selves form, of course, the particular repertoire of that individual 

 strain, and this repertoire is so distinct from that of other teams that 

 an exhibitor can easily pick out his property from a host of others 

 by merely hearing without seeing them. Having trained them him- 

 self to what he himself thinks perfection, it is of great assistance 

 to him to learn gratuitously and authoritatively what are their 

 shortcomings. 



To sit in judgment over such an array of talent must be very 

 perplexing to any judge ; but my friend accomplished his difficult 

 task by the help of notes about each team, taken down at the 

 morning visit. While picking out the best specimens individually, he 

 had also been unostentatiously taking note of the points necessary for 

 the subsequent awarding of the team prizes. 



From the time that awards are made public congratulations to 

 the owners and enthusiastic encomiums on their productions are 

 liberally bestowed, and the birds sing lustily in defiance of their 

 strange surroundings. 



