125 EAST INDIAN VARIETIES. 



be wasting time that miglit be better employed, as we have 

 both varieties ready made to our hands. 



The Mookee is a good breeder and feeder. It is a long- 

 lived pigeon. One dun cock that I sent to Dundee from 

 Calcutta, old when he left, lived for ten years afterwards. 



The Goolee Pigeon. 



The Goolee is a small pigeon, not much larger than the 

 Short -faced Tumbler. It was in the possession of a Mr. 

 Wood, one of four brothers, all pigeon fanciers in Calcutta, 

 that I first saw a good collection of Goolees, and what 

 at once struck me, was their close resemblance in shape 

 and carriage to our Short-faced Tumblers. The Goolee has 

 a spindle beak, like that of our small, clean-legged, flying Tum- 

 blers, and an abruptly rising forehead, showing a decided 

 stop. Were the best of them to be subjected to treatment 

 from the skull improvers that are said to be used in this 

 country for shaping the heads of Short-faced Tumblers, the 

 result would be birds differing little from these pigeons, 

 except in colour. Indian fanciers, however, do not use such 

 instruments, for they only value properties that can be bred 

 in their pigeons. 



The upper mandible of the Goolee is coloured, the lower 

 white ; but reds and yellows have generally light beaks. The 

 marking of the head and neck is the same as in the 

 Sherajee. The irides are usually dark. The tail, with its 

 coverts, is coloured. This marking is found in all solid 

 colours, and, when the colours are rich and lustrous, as they 

 often are, the eye ceres and corners of the mouth are of a 

 decidedly reddish hue. The rest of the plumage is white, 

 except in a rarer variety, known as the Mottled Goolee. 

 The mottled variety, to be right, must have a rose pinion of 

 coloured feathers on the wing coverts; when this rose pinion 

 is composed of well -separated feathers the effect is very 

 pleasing. Some of the Mottled Goolees are of three colours, 



