11 



request that he would forward two birds to value. Of another 

 acknowledged producer of prize stock, some two hundred miles away, 

 he procured ten hen birds at the exceptionally high price, for hens, of 

 three shillings per bird, these also being selected by the seller. Thus 

 he started with a dozen unrelated yearlings of renowned descent. 

 Turned loose into an attic room, properly prepared and fitted, early in 

 April, the two cocks, then in their prime, mated as they listed ; after 

 three months' care there were some sixty young cock-birds and half 

 that number of hens flying about, none of which had ever heard a 

 song note other than from the two sires, i.e., the best only. 



My other friend, A.N., of the same city, reserved ten pairs of his 

 own excellent strain, but, having no spare room, stacked breeding 

 cages against one wall of his sitting room, and kept each pair separate. 

 In this warm room he could begin operations a month sooner, but 

 after all he reared no more young cockbirds than the first mentioned 

 breeder, although he had to devote more trouble, expense, and 

 another month's time to his breeding season. He certainly had 

 bred more young hens than CM., but these are rarely taken into 

 account. 



Here we have two widely differing methods ending in similar 

 results. Neither hal been very successf ul from the point of view of 

 the ordinary selling-stock breeder, who would have looked upon sixty 

 young cooks only from ten old hens as a very poor season's result. 



Both my friends were, however, quite satisfied ; they possessed the 

 •elements fit to be worked up to that degree of excellence attained only 

 by the smallest minority : the elite of vocal artistes. 



As Iihave said, there is no I royal road, but I found that most of 

 the larger breeders elect to give up a whole room to the purpose 

 rather than have the trouble of attending to many separate cages. 

 In such cases I have often seen as many as ten cocks and thirty hens 

 turned loose together, and within a fortnight the room presented a 

 strangely empty appearance, every hen being on a clutch of eggs, 

 and only the cocks remaining visible. On an average, the ultimate 

 results of such propitious commencements were that some three 

 hundred young were raised during the season, without the necessity 

 of separate attention to each hen. 



When this method is pursued, feeding, cleaning, and general 

 attendance is carried on in a wholesale sort of way. An attic room 



