Our  Canaries 
205 
CHAPTER  XII. 
COLOUR-FEEDING. 
WHAT   IT  IS. 
FAKING  !  Staining  from  within  ! !  Obtaining  prizes  by  false  pretences  (or 
at  least  endeavouring  to  do  so)  ! !  !  Systematic  cruelty  ! !  !  !  Such  are  a 
few  replies  which  one  might  expect  to  hear  from  a  certain  class  of  bird- 
keepers  to  the  question:  "What  is  colour-feeding?"  But  the  vast  majority 
of  breeders  and  exhibitors  of  the  colour  breeds  believe,  and  know,  that  their 
opponents  are  wrong  on  each  and  every  score,  and  so  far  from  this  univer- 
sally recognised  and  legitimate  practice  having  any  element  of  fraud  or  faking 
about  it,  it  has,  without  a  shadow  of  doubt,  contributed  more  to  fair  and 
honest  open  competition  than  all  other  laws  and  regulations  made  for  the 
prevention  of  unfair  or  illegitimate  competition  put  together.  That  abuses  did 
occur  in  competing  for  the  honours  of  the  prize  list  in  the  early  days,  before 
the  art  of  colour-feeding  was  discovered,  is  proven  up  to  the  hilt  by  the 
immense  furor  and  immediate  suspicion  which  the  team  of  colour-fed  birds 
shown  by  Mr.  Bemrose  at  Norwich  in  1873  aroused. 
In  the  archives  of  fanciers'  historical  records  we  find  the  birds  arousing 
suspicion,  being  disqualified,  or  subjected  to  chemical  tests  to  discover  ex- 
ternal colouring  matter  simply  because  they  stood  out  in  tone  and  depth  of 
colour  a  long  way  in  front  of  their  fellow  competitors — a  striking  proof  this 
that  the  abuses  mentioned  were  only  too  well  known  in  those  early  days. 
And  what  would  have  been  the  result  in  these  days  if  the  process  of  colour- 
feeding  had  not  been  recognised  as  a  legitimate  means  of  bringing  out  the 
natural  beauties  of  the  birds  intended  for  exhibition  to  the  fullest  possible 
extent  ? 
Colour  must  and  will  always  bear  a  certain  weight  in  adjudication,  even 
though  the  judge  is  quite  unconscious  of  its  influence  and  of  the  absolute 
impossibility  of  drawing  a  definite  line  between  colour  obtained  by  colour- 
feeding  and  that  which  is  solely  due  to  breeding.  It  must  always  give  rise 
to  disputes  and  contentions  (such  as  we  now  occasionally  find  cropping  up  in 
the  ranks  of  Border  Fancy  breeders)  if  colour-feeding  be  totally  barred  and 
ruled  a  fraudulent  practice, 
HOW   COLOUR   IS  FED. 
The  term  colour- feeding  is  commonly  misunderstood,  and  by  none  more 
than  the  opponents  of  the  practice,  whose  criticisms  would  invariably  lead  one 
to  suppose  that  a  certain  colour  was  fed  to  the  bird  simply  to  be  carried  to 
the  surface  from  within  the  body  and  deposited  there  in  this  indirect  manner 
