46 FANCY PIGEONS. 



considered an offslioot of the former — the silver. In this 

 colour the body tint assumes a dun hue, and the neck and 

 wing bars become of a darker dun. There are two show 

 shades of silvers, known as brown barred and black barred. 

 They bear the same relation to each other as the whole- 

 coloured duns, found in carriers and barbs. The carrier dun 

 is soft and ruddy, while the barb dun is often very deep and 

 merging into black. Although the dark-barred silver is called 

 black barred, this is quite a misnomer, for real black bars on 

 a dun-tinted body colour are, I believe, incompatible with 

 nature. I have lately seen a silver cushat or ringdove which 

 was shot in Fife, in January, 1885. 



When the reddish tint of a mealy pigeon is changed to 

 buff the neck and wing bars become yellow, and this colour 

 is known in the fancy as yellow mealy, a soft and beautiful 

 colour, found in many kinds of pigeons. Another barred 

 colour found in pigeons is powdered blue, as in the Mahomet. 

 The feathers of the head, neck, and shoulders of this bird 

 are all tipped as if with hoar frost, the bars across its wings 

 and tail remaining of an intense black. This colour has been 

 engrafted on the blue owl pigeon, and a variation of it is 

 known as powdered silver. 



The barred colours of pigeons, therefore, include blue with 

 black bars, silver with dun bars, mealy with red bars, and yellow 

 mealy with yellow bars. As powdered silvers and powdered 

 blues are found in owls, though not yet with such an intense 

 powdering as in the Mahomet, powdered mealies and yellow 

 mealies might, I think, be bred in time if wished for. Some 

 of the mealy show Antwerps have already much powdering on 

 their head and neck feathers. Through inter-breeding with 

 other colours there are a great number of off-coloured barred 

 pigeons, such as kite-barred blues, and reddish-barred blues; 

 but all such are undesirable, each body colour being 

 required pure of itself, and accompanied with sound bars to 

 suit it, except in some varieties, such as the Triganica 



