109 PECULIAR FEATHERING. 



cock, an old one on his arrival in Birmingham, in 1864, 

 having lived till 1875. 



Regarding the age of fancy pigeons generally, there was, 

 some years ago, a notice in the Field newspaper, of the 

 death of a White Trumpeter, belonging to Mr. Gates, 

 formerly an exhibitor of this breed, at the age of twenty- 

 two years, which is the same age as the pigeon Willughby 

 (1676*) refers to in the following passage : " Albertus 

 sets the twentieth year for the term of a pigeon's life. 

 As for tame pigeons (saith Aldrovandus), a certain man 

 of good credit told me that he had heard from his 

 father, who was much delighted in pigeons and other 

 birds, that he had kept a pigeon two and twenty years, 

 and that all that time it constantly bred, excepting the 

 last six months, which time, having left its mate, it had 

 chosen a single life." The oldest pigeon I ever had was a 

 common flying Tumbler, red in colour, which was fifteen 

 years old, and in good condition. I have known of a 

 Pouter cock breeding well when twelve years old; but it 

 would cheapen the price of fine pigeons if they usually lived 

 so long. 



The Swallow-tall Pigeon. 



I have never seen the variety of domestic pigeon that 

 has a forked tail, like the common House Swallow, and no 

 pigeon fancier, either here or abroad, seems to have 

 described it from actual observation. The existence of 

 such a breed seems to depend on what has been said by 

 Bechstein, the German naturalist, from whom Brent, who is 

 the only fancier who mentions it, has gathered the following : 

 " Die Taube mit Schwalbenschwanz. — Bechstein, in his ' Natural 

 History of Germany ' describes this variety as occasionally to 

 be found among the collections of pigeon fanciers, and says 

 they are blue, chequered, or black mottled, the outer feathers 

 of the tail being much prolonged, or forked like that of the 



