28o 
Our  Canaries 
specially  selected  as  excelling  as  far  as  possible  in  the  features  in  which  the  other 
bird  fails.  Only  in  cases  where  the  fault  is  so  serious  as  to  approach  the  nature 
of  a  fatal  blemish,  and  is  propagated  throughout  the  successive  broods  of  young 
with  any  sort  of  mate,  should  a  pure  bred  bird  be  wholly  discarded  until  the  breed 
once  more  reaches  a  stage  when  one  can  afford  to  reject  specimens  by  having  a 
much  larger  selection  at  command  than  obtains  at  the  present  day. 
RESUSCITATING  THE  BREED. 
In  making  new  material  to  infuse  fresh  blood  into  the  breed,  the  Lizard,  which 
already  possesses  so  much  in  common  with  it,  undoubtedly  affords  the  greatest 
chances  of  success.    Here  we  already  have  the  innate  tendency  to  produce  the 
most  desirable 
feature — the  black 
wings  and  tail — 
and  also  the 
"  annual  "  char- 
acteristics, and 
although  the 
spangling  is  a 
serious  obstacle  to 
contend  with,  that 
it  could  be  bred 
out  of  the  London 
Fancy  again  just 
as  surely  as  our 
fore-fathers  eradi- 
cated it  in  evolving 
the  latest  type  of 
bird  from  the  older 
"They  arc  good  parents,  attending  well  to  their  young."  Spangl  e  -  bac  ks , 
admits   of  no 
reasonable  doubt.  But  the  introduction  of  the  Lizard  should  not  be  made 
direct.  A  clear  yellow  Norwich  hen,  or  a  lightly  wing-marked,  or  dark-tailed 
bird  which  is  light  in  flue,  bred  from  an  undoubted  strain  of  Even-marks 
should  be  selected  and  mated  to  a  Silver  Lizard  as  sound  as  possible  in 
wings  and  tail,  and  if  it  is  over-capped,  bald-faced,  or  moulted  out  very  light  in 
body,  so  much  the  better.  The  progeny  of  this  pair  will  contain  some  more  or  less 
solid  dark  winged  and  tailed  birds  with  more  or  less  variegation  on  the  body. 
From  among  them  should  be  selected  the  soundest  wing  and  tail  coloured  hens 
with  the  clearest  bodies  and  the  variegation  broken  up  into  the  smallest  patches, 
resembling  more  the  spangles  of  the  Lizard  than  the  patches  of  variegation 
