AprU 16, 1875. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB, 



303 



large feathers of the wiogs and the tail (fig. 73). Thoae of the 

 thighs (fig. li) have the atiipea broader, and they are altogether 



Fig. K. 



Fig. 7-1. 



darker. The feathers of the abdomen and sides are of a mixed 

 g^ey- 



THE ENGLISH OWL AND MAHOMET 

 PIGEONS. 



" Wii-TSHiRE Bector " gives his opponents a sugared plum to 

 encourage them to go on. Having received one of his plums I 

 therefore proceed to mention some ideas suggested by the Hector's 

 last. 



Eaton in his book quotes the writer of the Treatise of 17G-5 as 

 Mayor. For shortness I shall do the same. I do not consider 

 Mayor is wrong in his quotation about the size of the Owl, for 

 although it is, as Mr. Tegetmeier says in his book, the size of 

 the Turbit that Moore gives as little larger than the Jacobin, he 

 immediately afterwards in the few words devoted to the Owl 

 says, " This Pigeon is in make and shape like the former (the 

 Turbit). Things equal to the same thing are equal to each 

 other." 



The Eeotor is too hard on Mayor when he says, " The former, 

 quotes Moore throughout without acknowledgment, which is 

 the conduct of a dishonest man." Eaton also attacks him, say- 

 ing, " I am rather surprised Mayor had not a little more candour 

 or honour in acknowledging Moore, from whose works he cabbaged 

 the greater part of his work; he simply mentions his name twice 

 thronghout his work " — viz., at pages 12.5 and 141. We shall see 

 farther on that Eaton himself was an accomplished cabbager 

 Instead of mentioning Moore's name only twice, I find on a 

 casual look through the book that Mayor mentions it eight times ; 

 and farther, from what is original in his book, I judge him to 

 have been a Pigeon fancier of the right stamp, whatever Girton 

 alias Thompson may have been. Perhaps Eaton's copy of 

 Mayor was mutilated and imperfect, or perhaps it may have 

 been the small paper edition with simple woodcuts, and not 

 the large paper one with good 6teel plates, which the Rector 

 tells me privately I am the fortunate possessor of. Not yet 

 having a copy of the small paper edition I cannot say whether or 

 not in it Moore is only named twice. Certainly Eaton was a 

 painstaking careful writer, and to be trusted to transcribe what 

 he read. This is what Mayor says in his preface page siii., " In 



regard to the model of this Treatise we do not offer it to the 

 public as an entire new work, but have proceeded on the plan of 

 Mr. Moore, have corrected some errors and made many adiiitiona 

 with extracts from other authors ; and as Mr. Moore'a essoy is 

 very deficient for want of cuts to convey a just idea of the diffe- 

 rent species, in order to supply that defect we have procured 

 engravings from the best hands at a very great expense in order 

 to illustrate this work, all which are done from the life, and 

 very masterly executed under the inspection of the author and 

 other fanciers." He here lays claim to being more than a " book- 

 seller's hack," and writes much on the Almond and other 

 Tumbers, Owls, Mahomets, Lace Pigeons, and Frillbacks, that 

 is all original. 



Although Mayor mentions Moore much oftener than Eaton 

 gives him credit for, Eaton himself published his Almond 

 Tumbler in 1851, three-fourths of which is copied verlmtim from 

 Windus, and he never mentions his name once, or, supposing ha 

 did not know his name at that time, the existence of the book 

 published in 1802 by " An Old Fancier." In his subsequent 

 publications of 18.52 and 18.58 Eaton takes Moore as his text, 

 adding notes of his own and writers between Moore and that 

 time. But in each of these books he reprints hisi Almond 

 Tumbler with very slight alterations, not taking Windus as a 

 text, and adding notes of his own to show what he was entitled 

 to, but in such a way as to make the reader believe that all was 

 his own. Those having the Almond Tumbler of 1WI2 and 1851 

 can of course see what belongs to each writer. 



As to the Owl of Moore's time all he says about it is, that "in 

 make and shape it is like the Turbit, except that the upper chap 

 of its beak is hooked over like an Owl's, and whence it has its 

 name. Its colour is always entirely white, blue, or black." 

 Mayor gives a much fuller description, includes yellow among 

 the colours, and mentions " a fine sky blue, and the lighter they 

 are in colour, particularly in the hackle, the more they are 

 valued." This to my mind is the colour known as powdered blue, 

 and I am therefore satisfied that this colour has been known in 

 Owls for 110 years. I have a theory how it was produced, and 

 will mention it further on. I do not think that Moore ever saw 

 such birds as the fine African Owls now imported, or he would 

 have given a very different description of them ; also, bad 

 there been Powdered Blues then he would have mentioned 

 them. By Mayor's time, however, I think some of the Africans 

 had been imported and pat the old style in the shade, so par- 

 ticularly does he describe birds that answer their description. 

 But unfortunately his plate of the bird does not answer his really 

 good description. If birds of the right stamp had been imported 

 it must have been in insnfiicient numbers to perpetuate the fine 

 style, or they mast have been lost ere long by carelessness. 



The colour powder blue, when I wrote some weeks a£o, was in 

 my opinion confined to the Owl Pigeon. I strangely forgot the 

 appearance of a bird I saw last year in Mr. Wallace's place in 

 Glasgow. This was one of a pair that had been brought, I think 

 Mr. Wallace's son told me, from Constantinople, and which as 

 far as I can remember it, corresponds exactly with the Pigeons 

 called Damascenes, figured in No. 11 of Mr. Fulton's new book. 

 These birds appear to me to be what Mayor describes as the true 

 Mahomets, as opposed to Moore's statement that the Mahomet 

 is a White Barb. Brent also says he once saw a pair of them at 

 a London dealer's (Eaton, page 102). Mayor calls them "nearly 

 cream-coloured with bars across the wing as black as ebony, of 

 the size of a Turbit, with a fine gullet, and in hen of a frill the 

 feathers rather appear like a seam with a small naked circle of 

 black flesh round the eye and a small black wattle." There 

 seems no doubt that the African Owl is in colour only white, 

 black, sooty, blue or white, splashed with black and blue. They 

 seem to have been all interbred, colour being disregarded. 

 From a blue-tailed white hen and a black-tailed white cock I 

 bred pure white, all dark blue and whites splashed with blue and 

 black. Anything approaching a sky or powdered blue I never 

 saw in African Owls that were really fine ones. I think, there- 

 fore, that the Powdered Blues were produced by crossing with the 

 Mahomet, as described by Mayor, which is not a proper cream- 

 colour but so light a blue that the dark neck accompanying blue 

 Pigeons is entirely absent, and a creamy appearance takes its 

 place, the bars remaining black as ebony. From old afsooiation 

 however, I like the powder blue in Owls, and repeat that could 

 it be engrafted on birds so fine as the Africans it would suit them 

 well. I fear, however, it never will, for the dusky colour of the 

 African destroys it at once; and a breeder would be so far away 

 in head, beak, and size as to lose heart. But though not probable 

 it is possible, and patience may accomplish the work. 



The Rector's theory of the climate is not to my way of think- 

 ing. Cold countries do not increase, they rather diminish size. 

 The heaviest birds among Pigeons are the Mediterranean Runts. 

 The Russian Trumpeter looks a large bird but does not handle 

 so, being all feathers. I can remember and have had Trumpet- 

 ers of the old type half as heavy again as the largest Russians ; 

 I know of one pair of Russians that bred six or seven young 

 birds last year and all fiue. 



The African Owls, the Tarbiteens, Blondinettes, and Russian 



