My native place is Gainsborough, Lincolnshire and, although I am one of a family of eight, I was the only one to to take up the Canary Fancy.\u00a0 I was quite a young man when I started in 1885.\u00a0 My first Canary was the Lizard and during all these years I have never been without the breed.\u00a0 At that time there were only two other Lizard breeders in Gainsborough; Mr Croft a builder and a contractor who kept besides Lizards, bred Cinnamons and Norwich and showed them at shows such as Thorne, Snaith, Goole, Pickering and Sheffield.\u00a0 He did not however, show his Lizards in Manchester and the surro In the year 1887 there was a big show held in Gainsborough at the Morton Terrace.\u00a0 It was a horticultural and livestock show, which, besides cage birds, included poultry, pigeons, rabbits – and cats.\u00a0 It was judged by the well known all round livestock judge, Mr Enoch Hutton and I entered a clear cap gold Lizard and, in the British section, a Goldfinch.\u00a0 The Lizard stood first and medal for best Canary in show and the Goldfinch was first and best British.\u00a0 You can imagine how delighted I was at my success – especially as it was Queen Victoria’s Jubilee year.\u00a0 The medal, I prize as being the first I ever won.\u00a0 In fact it started me seriously on the road as a breeder and exhibitor and, since then, I have won the English National five times at the Crystal Palace, Scottish National, and Welsh National.\u00a0 The most coveted Diploma was the United Kingdom Cage Bird Championship and best bird at the Palace in 1909.\u00a0<\/p>\n In those early days of which I write, the Lizard show cage was somewhat different from the present one.\u00a0 It was a box cage 12 inches by 12 inches with an open wire front and had a half bow top similar to the present Crest or Gloster show cage.\u00a0 The cage was painted black on the outside and on the inside was a dull dark blue and the perches used to be half wrapped with red flannel.\u00a0 A more perfect cage for judging and exhibition of the Lizard could not be obtained and, in my opinion, was far superior to the present pattern.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lizardcanaryassociation.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/WP-Barnes-1.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a>unding districts – the home of the Lancashire and Lizard.\u00a0 Indeed, in the eighties, there were very few outside that area who bred the two varieties and I can only recall about five other exhibitors besides myself, who did so.\u00a0 They called me “the lad from Lincolnshire”.<\/p>\n