179 THE JACOBIN. 



chain the feathers turn out all round, and expose a centre 

 spot of white down." Exactly so; the rose is the centre of 

 chain, tippet, and mane. The following is what the German 

 ornithologist, Friderich, says in his " Natural History of Birds " 

 (second edition, 1863), where he treats of pigeons at great 

 length : " The feathery ruff runs along the sides of the neck, 

 down over the angles of the wings, reaches upwards over a 

 part of the crown, like a cowl, forming the mane (mdline) 

 towards the back part of the neck. This feathery ruff is parted 

 along the sides of the neck towards the front, the back, and 

 the top." Mr. P. H. Jones had Jacobins with manes before 

 1840, and Mr. Esquilant before 1850, according to their pub- 

 lished statements. From all the foregoing, nothing could be 

 more clear, than that the mane is not a modem property of 

 the Jacobin. I am inclined to believe, that the mere assertion 

 that it was modern has been the cause of most of the late 

 disturbance, some fanciers being so conservative that they 

 oppose, on principle, all new ideas. 



Another hallucination regarding the Jacobin is, that its head 

 and beak, or its marking, were derived from the Bald-headed 

 Tumbler. It was a short-faced bird before the Short-faced 

 Tumbler was in existence. It would be something like a 

 hundred years after Willughby described it before a Short- 

 faced Baldhead was produced. The Baldhead is first described 

 in 1765, among common Tumblers. Is it for its marking that 

 it is a relative of the Tumbler? Then why not choose the 

 German Monk, Priest, Ringbeater, or even the old Bald-headed 

 German Pouter, for its ancestor — not to mention the Indian 

 Mookee, and plenty more ? To say that it derived its marking 

 from the Tumbler, is about on a par with what a " judge " once 

 said to me at a show, when I asked him why he had entirely 

 passed some very good Baldheads in a class of Flying Tumblers. 

 " Give a prize to these things," said he ; " why, they're bred 

 from Jacobins." I could not reply to this, for I quite lost the 

 power of speech. In comparing the pictures of the Jacobin 



B 2 



