Chapter XXII. 



o< SHORT-FACED FRILLED PIGEONS. X> 



Historical. 



XTENSIYELY spread throughout Europe, 

 Asia, and North Africa, the Short-faced Frill- 

 breasted varieties include many of the most 

 charming types of pigeon beauty. Some of 

 the countries bordering on the Mediterranean 

 Sea would seem to be the home of this race, as those we had 

 in this country, or from France and Germany, before the 

 introduction of Tunis Owls and Turkish Frilled Pigeons, were 

 very much inferior in many respects. There is only a meagre 

 account of them in our early literature. Willughby says : 

 " Turbits, of the meaning and original of which name I must 

 confess myself to be ignorant. They have a very short thick 

 Bill, like that of a Bullfinch; the crown of their head is 

 flat and depressed; the feathers on the Breast reflected both 

 ways. They are about the bigness of the Jacobines, or a 

 little bigger. I take these to be the Candy or Indian doves 

 of Aldrovand, torn. 2, pp. 477-478, the Low Dutch Cortbeke." 

 A naturalist describing the Turbit at the present time might 

 give a similar description, the head being "flat and depressed" 



