49 



The Exhibition Hall is decorated with streamers, banners, and 

 groups of plants, and the crowd is increasing 1 as the evening hours 

 pass. 



Intending purchasers congregate near the most fancied " prize- 

 crowned" collections, and study industriously the song of the 

 reasonably priced stock sent to the show for sale. 



Each competing exhibitor's team, numbering from three to twelve 

 specimens, is kept somewhat apart from the next, and is surmounted 

 by the owner's name and address ; a convenience to those visitors 

 who wish to economize, or cannot wait for the issue of the printed 

 catalogue and award list. 



Sales may be effected at any time through the show committee, 

 and purchases may be removed as soon as the sale is completed, but 

 sales at shows are not numerous. As each exhibitor sends the very 

 best of his last season's productions, he mostly prefers keeping this 

 contingent together, either for further honors, or for his own use 

 during the propagating season. Inasmuch as a spirit of friendly 

 rivalry rules above private interests at all these meetings, shows are 

 not much used as markets for surplus stock, most of the competing 

 exhibits are entered : ''Not for sale." This formula obviates the 

 quoting of prohibitive prices in the catalogues, and precludes 

 uncomplimentary remarks of the uninitiated, who, in this country, 

 frequently scoff at the preposterous sums of three or four figures 

 printed in our catalogues. Not for sale " never misleads newspaper 

 reporters and others into the statement, or the actual belief that a 

 certain bird was " valued" at £1,000. 



Breeders of prize-birds, or teams, have no difficulty in disposing 

 privately of their surplus stock, but, with regard to their exhibition 

 birds, they know so well what each of the selected few can do, that 

 although the birds may not all have pleased the judge when under his 

 brief inspection, they are good enough to breed from, or to assist in 

 educating future prize-winners. Birds selected for competition, even 

 when unnoticed by the judge, are rarely tainted with cardinal vices 

 such as alluded to above, and small faults may be eradicated in the 

 next season's produce. 



For these reasons prize stock rarely changes hands ; amateurs from 

 a distance, with little time and limited purses, either buy from stock 



