Our  Canaries 
Silver  cock  and  a  clear-cap  Gold  hen,  as  large  as  possible,  but  avoid  a  hard  green 
tinge,  as  you  cannot  breed  good  Lizards  from  them.  See  that  they  have  that  soft 
silky  feather  which  is  so  important  in  a  good  Lizard." 
Equally  pointed  is  the  advice  to  the  beginner  given  us  by  Mr.  J.  Rukin,  of 
Rawtenstall.  "The  Lizard,"  he  writes,  "allows  no  crossing  to  increase 
size,  or  to  obtain  any  other  particular  point.  Cross  it  with  any  other 
variety  and  you  lose  at  once  practically  every  point  worth  consideration.  The  best 
way  of  mating  Lizards  is  to  pair  Gold  and  Silver  together — this  fact  cannot  be  too 
strongly  insisted  upon,  as  most  beginners  in  this  variety  take  a  fancy  to  either  the 
Golds  or  Silvers,  and  when  buying  stock  insist  upon  having  a  pair  of  Golds  or  a 
pair  of  Silvers,  as  the  case  may  be.  A  green  tinge  in  the  ground  colour  is  a  serious 
blemish.  The  spangling  should  commence  well  up  in  the  neck,  increasing  in  size 
to  the  wing  coverts,  each  row  of  spangling  being  separate  and  distinct,  and  clear 
and  linable  down  the  back." 
TO    PRODUCE    GOOD  CAPS. 
"  In  breeding  for  a  good  cap,  the  best  way  is  to  mate  a  clear-cap  cock 
and  a  broken-cap  hen  together,  as  by  doing  this  you  stand  a  good  chance  of 
getting  a  good  clear-capped  bird  or  two,  and  at  the  same  time  avoid  getting 
bald  faces  and  over-capped  birds.  If  a  bird  has  a  long  cap,  running  well  into 
the  neck,  mate  it  with  a  bird  with  a  very  short  cap,  or  one  without  a  cap. 
In  case  of  a  bird  with  a  narrow  skull  mate  it  with  the  widest  skulled  bird  you 
can  get,  as  birds  with  a  narrow  or  pinched  skull  are  not  much  use  on  the 
show  bench.  Whilst  on  the  subject  of  the  cap,  there  is  one  fault  in  Lizards 
which  requires  close  attention — i.e.  being  bald-faced,  when  the  cap  extends 
below  the  eye  and  gives  the  bird  the  appearance  of  wearing  spectacles.  This 
type  of  bird  should  never  be  bred  from,  as  once  this  fault  gets  into  a  strain 
it  is  extremely  difficult  to  get  rid  of.  A  white  or  '  bald  '  face  in  a  Lizard 
should  be  a  disqualification. 
"  Be  very  chary  of  breeding  with  birds  that  show  a  hollow  in  middle  of 
the  back,  as  they  have  a  tendency  to  show  a  split,  as  it  were,  down  the 
centre  of  the  back  and  spoil  an  otherwise  good  bird.  A  fault  in  some  strains 
of  Lizards  is  throwing  an  occasional  white  feather  in  wing  or  tail,  the  re- 
maindjr  of  the  wing  and  tail  feathers  being  good  black.  If  such  a  bird  is  good 
in  i:s  hlack  and  spangling  I  should  not  reject  it,  but  pair  it  with  a  non-capped 
bird,  and  this  would  rectify  matters.  I  have  mentioned  the  use  of  non- 
capped  birds,  as  they  are  favourites  of  mine,  and  invaluable  in  a  breeding 
room.  Such  birds  often  excel  in  spangle  and  ground  colour,  and  are  often 
good  show  birds.  One  Gold  hen  of  mine,  '  The  Queen,'  which  won  Champion- 
ship Diploma  for  Best  Lizard  at  the  Crystal  Palace,  in  1908,  was  bred  from- 
two  broken-capped  birds." 
