186 FANCY PIGEONS. 



to be liazel, or broken, in the irides. When whites have a 

 coloured feather or two in the hood or chain, the pearl eye 

 generally accompanies them; and as it is impossible to detect 

 the removal of a few feathers, what appear to be White 

 Jacobins at shows are not always so in reality. In off 

 colours, the chief are the strawberry, or sandy, of various 

 shades ; kites ; duns ; red and yellow chequers ; an occa- 

 sional red or yellow mealy, with distinct wing bars ; and 

 the very dark chequer, or bad black, which, while often of 

 a fair black on the wing coverts, is of blue grey on the 

 thighs and vent. These are all the result of crossing the 

 black, red, and yellow, or the produce of sound colours and 

 such as themselves. The first cross of black and red in 

 all varieties of pigeons, even in those of superlative colour, 

 often results in a strawberry, which is, accordingly, useful 

 in breeding back to these colours, especially to the black. 

 It altogether depends, however, on how the strawberry 

 itself may have been breed, whether or not it may be a 

 good match for some of the solid colours, its indiscriminate 

 use being calculated to spoil good colours. I have known a 

 pair of Red Jacobins produce red, yellow, black, and dun 

 young ones in one season. This was on account of the way 

 they were bred, the cock being from a red and black, and 

 the hen from a red and a yellow. 



Marking. — The Jacobin, in common with many other 

 varieties of fancy pigeons — none of which have any con- 

 nection with it, except that, as I believe, they all descended 

 originally from a common origin — is marked in the way called 

 bald-headed. It has been so for at least two hundred years. 

 Many instances occur to me of bald-headed pigeons being 

 produced from a self-coloured bird when mated with a pure 

 white. The first pair of pigeons I ever possessed, which I 

 bought for sixpence, while they were still unhatched, and 

 which I saw in the nest day by day as they feathered, were 

 a pair of Baldheads — a blue and a red — and were bred from 



