110 PIGEONS AND ALL AP.OFT THEM. 



THE FANTAIL, 



IN taking up this beautiful and interesting variety I wish 

 to go on record at once, in not admitting that the fantail 

 fanciers of this modern day recognize those two old bug- 

 bears of the fancy, the English and Scotch types. By this I 

 mean, that while each may exist as a type of something of 

 the past, the Fantail of to-day is a happy combination of the 

 best points in the two types. Of these two styles or types, it 

 is needless to say much, for their history is known to all fan- 

 tail men who are at all posted. The Scotch bird was a small, 

 tight, beautifully bodied bird, with great style and a funnel 

 shaped tail. In short, it was all style arid action. The Eng- 

 lish fan was larger, with a tendency to loose feather, coarse 

 head and neck, but with an enormous tail. The English 

 seemed to breed for a grand tail alone and cared little for 

 other points. 



The modern fantail has the beautiful body of the Scotch 

 type, and as near the English tail as a bird so much smaller 

 can carry ; but the tail, instead of being loose and rough, and 

 ''laced" on the ends, as the English used to like it, is hard 

 and stiff, with a great broad feather with firm and rounded 

 end, and each feather in place. The "bunches"' and ''splits" 

 that were so common in the old English bird have no place 

 now. 



Those who have kept pace w r ith pigeon literature of late 

 years, will admit that there have been more articles on the 

 Fantail than any other variety. I do not know that the fan- 

 tail fanciers are any more prolific writers, but somehow their 

 hearts were in their work. I have vast files of fantail liter- 

 ature, but, as all tend to the one point, that the modern or 

 combination bird is the bird there is little use in reproduc- 

 ing any opinions. 



