The 
Y ellowhammer. 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
(i34) 
The Yellowhammer: 
How to Select and Keep it. 
A Paper read by Mr, F. TURNBER before the Members of the City and 
Suburban Association of Canary Breeders.] 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,—Your secre¬ 
tary, Mr. Wynn, has asked me to give you a few 
details of my methods of treating and keeping 
the Yellowhammer. I am not going to weary 
you with a long paper, but will endeavour to 
put before you, in as few words as possible, my 
experiences with this bird. 
The species, I am sure, is too well known to 
you all to need a very minute description by me, 
but I would like to point out that what might 
be a very good bird for making up a collection 
in an aviary would probably be quite useless 
for an exhibition bird. 
Points of a Show Specimen. 
In picking out a specimen for a show bird, 
take the largest and richest in body-colour you 
can get, and one showing a large amount of 
yellow on the head, cheeks, throat and under- 
parts. The cheek marks should be as black as 
possible, and the head-markings should run 
from the bill to the back of the head in the 
shape of a V. The crown between the black 
lines should be clear, if possible; this, to my 
way of thinking, is the most difficult point to get, 
and when a specimen showing it is met with on 
the show bench, it ought to be pretty high up 
in the tickets. 
In the spring it is not such a difficult matter 
to get such a bird as I have described, but after 
the moult, well, the ideal specimen will probably 
have a pretty dark head and be not worth two¬ 
pence as a show bird. 
Many birds have quite clear heads in the 
spring, like a Norwich plain-head canary, but 
personally I am not much struck with one of 
this sort, as they do not moult out at all satis¬ 
factory show birds, or anything like what they 
were before the moult. 
Colour-feeding. 
For exhibition, a Yellowhammer should always 
be slightly colour-fed; if moulted out naturally, 
the yellow looks very washed-out and the bird 
is not “ in it ” at all, if compared with a well 
colour-fed specimen. 
They are not difficult to get on to colour-feed; 
1 mix the colour-feed with the canary seed at 
the start, sometimes chopping up a few meal¬ 
worms with the colour-feed to get them to eat 
it, and after that they get used to it. 
Of course, you want to start before the moult, 
the same as you would feeding canaries, and 
gradually bring up the strength of the feed. 
They do not want feeding on hot pepper; the 
tasteless sort seems to suit them best. Whep 
possible to get it, I mix about half of yellow 
feed to the same quantity of red pepper, and 
keep it up some time after the moult, also 
giving plenty of mealworms. 
The Bath as a Finisher. 
The bath should be freely used, and this' is 
the finest thing to put on the polish, or, as it is 
called, condition. If it is not convenient to give 
a bath, the spray should be freely used every 
day, and, when available, there is nothing to 
beat rain-water, which must be quite clean. 
I myself always filter it. To do that you can 
get from any photographer’s what are called 
filter papers; they are four a penny. Put one 
or two inside a large funnel. Stand the funnel 
in a large bottle and fill up to the top of the 
filter paper, and it will gradually drip into the 
bottle; then fill up again and so on, and the 
rain-water will be as clear as crystal and fit 
for use. 
A Model of Deportment. 
These birds vary very much in temper, and 
you should never try to start on an old bird, as 
they are very difficult to steady. But if a bird 
of the year is taken in the winter, it usually gets 
tame quickly. 
The one I was so successful at the shows with 
was a caught specimen and took to captivity 
well, and won three first and special prizes 
before the moult and never broke a feather in 
the process; and in the hands of its present 
owner, I fully expected it would be first at the 
Palace last time. 
Treatment of New-caught Birds. 
I might say, when I get fresh-caught speci¬ 
mens I usually put them in a long flight cage 
with one or two others, and get them on to seed; 
and after a few weeks cage them up in a box- 
cage, such as is usually described in the fancy 
papers, for a few more weeks or so, and then 
give them a fly in the flight-cage again, as it 
freshens them up, and so on till they get 
steady that way. Some never do get steady, 
of course; the best thing to do is to let that 
sort fly, as they are no use as show birds unless 
steady. 
I was successful, as most of you here know, 
with a Yellowhammer at our show a year or 
