Chapter XXI. 



« THE JACOBIN PIGEON. » 



History and Literature. 



URING the past few years, there has been con- 

 siderable controversy over this variety, which 

 is one of the choicest in the whole fancy. 

 Such controversy was nothing new, for, although 

 it turned on a fresh question regarding what 

 constitutes the true breed, our first writer of note on pigeons — 

 John Moore, himself — clearly indicates that there were differ- 

 ences of opinion in his day about this pigeon. Subsequent 

 writers, mostly imitators of Moore, continued denouncing the 

 Jacobins of their time as not the true breed, and there has 

 been no rest for its breeders, as first one, and then another 

 writer, felt called on to declaim in no measured terms against 

 the generally accepted standard of the breed. I will give my 

 ideas on the questions forming the chief differences of opinion 

 later on, and commence with an account of what is known of 

 the Jacobin from books. It is mentioned by Aldrovandus, in his 

 " Ornithology," as the Columba Cijpria CucuUata. Willughby, 

 who was indebted to Aldrovandus for a good deal of what 

 he wrote on pigeons, says : " Jacohines, called by the Low 



