Our  Canaries 
Lizards  proper  as  show  birds  at  the  time  offers  a  certain  amount  of  circumstantial 
evidence  that  the  London  Fancy  was  in  reality  a  more  highly-bred  and  cultivated 
type  emanating  from  the  Lizard.  The  difificulty  of  obliterating  the  markings  on 
the  body,  and  the  strongly-marked  tendency  of  all  light-plumaged  varieties  to 
revert  back  to  the  green  or  dark  plumage  as  soon  as  the  control  and  supervision  of 
the  breeder  is  relaxed,  leaves  us  with  no  reasonable  doubt  that  this  was  the  case, 
and  not,  as  some  have  suggested,  that  the  reverse  happened  and  the  Lizard  was 
nothing  more  than  a  degenerate  type  of  the  London  Fancy. 
SIMILARITY    OF    THE  NESTLINGS. 
That  both  these  varieties,  however,  originated  from  a  common  stock  is 
abundantly  proved  by  the  striking  similarity  of  the  young  in  their  immature 
plumage,  and  another  point  in  favour  of  the  Lizard  being  the  primitive  type  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  when  the  London  Fancy  had  reached  its  highest  state  of 
perfection  a  change  was  already  beginning  to  come  over  the  immature  plumage, 
and  it  was  no  uncommon  thing  for  the  young  to  leave  the  nest  with  more  or  less 
light  plumage  upon  the  body ;    whereas  tradition  leads  us  to  believe  that  it 
invariably  left  the  nest  in  the  olden  days  with  wholly  dark  body  feathers  similar  to 
the  Lizard,  the  only  difference,  as  the  writer  of  the  article  in  1846  already  referred 
to  tells  us,  being  that  the  young  of  the  London  Fancy  were  of  a  brownish  hue, 
whilst  the  dark  coat  of  the  young  Lizard  was  set  off  by  a  gloss  of  fine  grey  similar 
to  the  effect  of  light  upon  an  antique  bronze,  the  legs  and  beak  also  being  dark 
coloured  in  both  varieties.     In  common  with  the  Lizard  it  also  possesses  the 
peculiarity  of  being  "  an  annual,"  or  retaining  its  correct  show  plumage  for  one 
year  only — that  is,  between  the  time  of  its  first  and  second  moultings.     When  it 
leaves  the  nest  the  whole  of  the  large  wing  and  tail  feathers  should  be  as  black  as 
possible,  and  the  smaller  feathers  all  over  the  body— technically  known  as  the 
contour  feather— are  of  a  greenish-bronze  colour,  though  as  we  have  already  said 
in  later  times  birds  had  begun  to  leave  their  nests  with  patches  of  light-coloured 
contour  plumage.    At  the  first  moult  which  takes  place  when  the  birds  are  from 
eight  to  twelve  weeks  old  the  contour  plumage  only  is  shed  and  replaced  by  a  rich 
yellow  or  buff  plumage— more  frequently  termed  "  jonque"  and  "  mealy"  respect- 
ively, in  this  variety.     Very  frequently  this  plumage  retained  spots  of  dark  colour 
scattered  about  the  body,  particularly  upon  the  back,  which  gave  rise  to  the  term 
"  Spangle-backs."     The  wing  and  tail  feathers  not  being  shed  at  the  first  moult 
remained  in  the  original  black  colour,  and  formed  the  most  important  feature  of 
the  ideal  show  bird.    But  when  the  second  moult  occurs  in  the  following  Autumn 
the  wing  and  tail  feathers  are  shed  with  the  others,  and  are  now  reproduced  either 
wholly  or  very  largely  of  a  light  colour,  and  the  bird  loses  the  one  essential  feature 
which  constitutes  it  an  exhibition  specimen.     It  is  no  longer  of  any  use  as  a  show 
bird,  but  still  retains  its  usefulness  in  the  breeding  cage,  and  produces  the  dark- 
