Crisp 
Conundrums. 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
(i5i) 
Crisp Conundrums. 
Mr* R. L. CRISP (London C.B*A*) Delivers Himself of a “ Thesis” on the 
Yorkshire Canary* 
According to Nuttall a thesis may be taken to 
mean “a position, a proposition, or a subject.” 
As the Yorkshire Canary is a “position” bird, 
Mr. R. L. Crisp, in delivering a paper on the 
“ subject,” hit upon a happy title for his “ pro¬ 
positions,” and the latter included a few choice 
conundrums that we respectfully commend to the 
consideration of the curious with a turn for 
more or less profitable speculation. Here is one 
of his problems : 
In order to improve the colour of your 
birds, is a yellow cock bred from a good 
coloured yellow cock or a yellow cock from 
a good coloured yellow hen or a yellow hen 
from a good coloured yellow cock or a 
yellow hen from a good coloured hen the 
best for the purpose, and the same question 
applies to buffs? 
Sounds very much like a test for drunkenness, 
doesn’t it? At the outset it was proposed by 
Mr. Franz and seconded by Mr. Lazarus that 
Mr. Dewhurst take the chair. The Chairman, 
upon taking his seat, called upon Mr. Crisp for 
his promised paper. Prefacing his remarks by 
a brief apologia, saying that the longer he re¬ 
mained in the fancy the more difficult he found 
it to dogmatise, Mr. Crisp went on to remark 
that it was the work of a lifetime to breed an 
ideal Yorkshire Canary. There was not one per 
season on the average, or how was it that a bird 
six years old could score over all birds in their 
first -and second seasons ? They had seen an 
example of this. He didn’t want to dishearten 
the young fancier, but if ideals could be turned 
out “ like ripe cherries ” the art of breeding would 
lose half its spice. 
It was necessary to attend good shows and 
get a proper conception of the ideal bird before 
you strove to breed for it. The diversity of 
opinion existing amongst some judges was very 
perplexing, and the last season was prolific of 
examples in divergence of views. When he 
started in the hobby Mr. J. Bexson was judging 
very largely, and he believed in large, typical 
specimens. That accounted for his—Mr. Crisp’s 
—preference for that style of Yorkshire. He 
did not think the birds now were so large as 
those-of some years back. If a Yorkie was seven 
inches long, so much the better, to his mind, 
but they were difficult to get. The use of the 
Lancashire to obtain size was not now necessary, 
as plenty of Yorkshire birds with size were ob¬ 
tainable, and a large Yorkshire somewhat faulty 
was, in his view, preferable to a Lancashire for 
Yorkshire purposes. He liked a bird to combine 
exhibition points with stock value. 
Mr. Jonas Knight had stated that as size may 
be inherited he would as soon breed with small 
birds from large parents as from large ones so 
bred. He also said that he had bred so for 
twelve years without any tendency to diminu¬ 
tion in the progeny so produced. But he—Mr. 
Crisp—thought that upon the principle of like- 
producing like the result would not bear out 
such contention. It appeared to him that the 
pairing of large birds with an inherited tendency 
to size was preferable. 
But mating at sight, he thought, played a 
greater part than inborn tendency. If blood 
were everything, why did the large majority of 
fanciers retain their best specimens year after 
year? If their more mediocre relatives would 
produce similar results, why did such men as 
Shackleton and Barnett retain their finest for 
themselves? Mr. Metcalfe, a well-known 
breeder of greens, lecturing the other day, said 
he would sooner have the birds than the pedi¬ 
gree. He—Mr. Crisp—had known good speci¬ 
mens come from birds worthless in appearance, 
but the chances of producing winners from birds- 
without breed in their looks was extremely 
small. 
He liked to pair a large, good-feathered buff 
hen with a small, typical, breedy yellow cock, 
and on more than one occasion he had succeeded 
in breeding a really good bird from such a 
mating ; or you could pair stilty-legged hens with- 
large cocks down on leg, but, unfortunately, 
these hens were not plentiful; or, again, by the 
pairing of the above-mentioned small, breedy 
yellow cock to two medium-sized buff hens—but 
be sure they are of good quality, even if they fail 
a little in position—with the sole idea of breeding 
“ breedy ” hens to pair, as remarked before, with 
cocks rather across the perch. In the subse¬ 
quent or third season a little judicious in- 
breeding on the side of the hens (say aunt to 
nephew), with discreet selection of the stock, 
should bring about the desired result. It would, 
said the lecturer, be obvious to them all that 
this was the sequel to pairing the cock and two 
hens in the first instance. 
“ I believe,” continued Mr. Crisp, “ that cinna¬ 
mon greens may also be used with advantage 
for crossing with black-eyed birds to improve 
quality and colour, and I do not see why type 
should be materially affected thereby.” He was 
inclined to think there was something in the 
contention that cinnamon-bred birds were less 
hardy than black-eyed. 
For the purpose of breeding cinnamon-marked 
birds (both cocks and hens) it was best to have 
only one of the partners a marked bird and the 
other a pure pink-eyed, but if both partners were 
marked they should be ticked only, and even. 
