Our  Canaries 
367 
CHAPTER  XXVII. 
TRAINING  CANARIES  TO  SING. 
THE  ROLLER'S  SONG. 
HE  song  required  of  the  pure  Roller  Canary  being  a  wholly  artificial  melody 
1  it  must  not  be  expected  that  the  young  birds  will  acquire  it  without  careful 
training  and  tuition,  nor,  indeed,  given  these  necessary  advantages,  will  all  the 
youngsters  become  equally  expert  and  proficient  performers.  In  fact,  there  will 
be  comparatively  few  of  the  highest-class  performers  of  a  pure  and  faultless  type 
of  song  such  as  are  required  to  carry  off  the  laurels  as  contest  singers,  though  the 
great  majority  of  the  young  cocks  may  develop  a  very  excellent  style  of  song, 
with  only  trivial  flaws  of  little  moment  to  the  average  lover  of  a  good  pure  singing 
Roller,  but  which  materially  reduce  its  chances  of  success  in  competition,  where 
only  the  most  faultless  performers  can  be  expected  to  come  off  victorious.  The 
song  of  the  high-class  Roller  should  be  as  a  continuous  stream  of  soft,  sweet, 
flowing  melody,  soothing  and  pleasing  to  the  ear,  free  from  any  harsh,  zit-zittering 
or  kettledrum-like  tattoing  upon  the  tympanum  ;  as  a  German  critic  would  put 
it,  there  should  be  only  a  sense  of  a  smooth  flowing  or  rolling  with  no  indication 
of  the  hammering  song  of  the  ordinary  type  of  singer.  The  first  step  is  to  get  the 
necessary  material  to  work  upon ;  when  this  has  been  accomplished  and  the 
young  cocks  are  well  on  a  seed  diet  it  becomes  a  question  as  to  whether  they 
should  be  caged  separately  for  tuition  or  allowed  to  remain  in  the  flights  until  the 
end  of  the  moult.  Each  method  has  its  special  uses.  If  one  desires  to  get  his 
birds  through  a  fair  amount  of  training  and  placed  upon  the  market  early,  it  is  of 
great  advantage  to  cage  them  separately  in  the  company  of  good  tutors  as  soon  as 
they  are  well  on  a  seed  diet.    The  early  hatched  young  will  then  in  many  cases 
HH  2 
