Our  Canaries 
267 
times  with  the  result  that  I  did  obtain  size,  but  with  it  a  great  amount  of  feather. 
Consequently,  I  considered  the  experiment  on  each  occasion  a  failure,  and  prefer 
the  usual  method  of  pairing  Silvers  to  Golds,  taking  care  always  to  select  the 
largest  birds  to  keep  size  up  to  the  maximum.  It  is  usual  to  pair  a  clear-cap  bird 
to  a  broken-cap  one,  or  if  you  had  a  bird  that  was  over-capped  it  would  be 
necessary  to  select  as  a  mate  for  it  one  that  was  devoid  of  cap,  or  had  very  little 
light  feather  on  the  head.  This  would  tend  to  balance  matters  and  in  almost 
every  case  you  would  produce  both  clear  and  broken-caps  from  such  a  union,  and 
you  will  produce  few,  if  any,  white  or  bald  faces,  or  white  feathers  in  wings  and 
tail. 
"  Through  pairing  all  clear»capped  birds  you  produce  over-capped, 
bald-faced,  and  pied  wings  and  tails." 
"  I  should  like  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  intending  fanciers  of  this  variety, 
the  fallacy  of  the  craze  for  all  clear-capped  birds  for  stock  purposes,  for  in  pursuing 
this  craze  there  is  nothing  but  failure  awaiting  you.  If  you  want  to  breed  good 
Lizards  you  must  use  an  abundance  of  broken-capped  stock  birds  ;  otherwise  you 
will  obtain  a  superabundance  of  over-capped,  bald-faced,  and  pied  winged  and 
tailed  birds  which  will  prove  worse  than  a  pest  in  your  aviaries. 
"  Size  is  of  much  importance  in  the  Lizard  of  to-day,  but  the  difficulty  of 
breeding  good,  big  birds  has  yet  to  be  overcome.  In  a  big  Lizard  one  difficulty 
seems  always  to  appear,  viz.,  great  length  of  feather,  and  where  you  fmd  great 
