195 FRILL-BREASTED PIGEONS, 



more or less, and in tlie race under review it sometimes does 

 so very considerably, from the formation of the head and 

 beak ; but I have found that, when it does, it is generally 

 owing to a weak under mandible; while I have also found, 

 that birds so formed are much troubled with vermin, being 

 unable to keep themselves free from them, like Short-faced 

 Tumblers whose beaks have been distorted in the process of 

 head-shaping. The upper mandible of a pigeon has no inde- 

 pendent motion, and is not jointed like that of a parrot, which 

 can move its upper beak at will, so that, though much hooked, 

 it can lay hold of anything small. The best under mandibled 

 African Owls I have seen were not much hooked in the upper 

 beak. The picture of an Owl in the Treatise of 1765 does not 

 represent a bird with a hooked beak ; nor has Mr. Ludlow, in 

 Mr. Fulton's book, represented any of this family of pigeons 

 so. The mandibles may never be completely boxed, but, in 

 my opinion, the nearer they are so the better. The mouth 

 should be wide, and deep in the head. 



Eye should be large, prominent or bolting, and placed in 

 the centre of the head. The irides are hazel or " bull " in 

 whites, and orange or yellow in coloured birds. 



Beak and Eye Wattles vary considerably in birds of the 

 same family, A moderate amount is natural, and therefore 

 allowable. The beak wattle thickens with age, and, so long as 

 it does not stand out much beyond the cui-ve of the skull, 

 cannot be objected to. Neither the beak nor eye wattles should 

 be rough and lumpy, otherwise they give coarseness to Owls 

 and their varieties. 



Gullet is a thin, transparent skin filling up the hollow of 

 the throat, commencing on the under mandible, as far forward 

 as the feathers grow, and reaching, in a good bird, to the top 

 of the frill. This property can be seen, whenever a bird is 

 hatched, if the beak be gently raised. The gullet is about the 

 last part of a bird to be covered with feathers ; and I may say 

 here, that pigeons of the Owl tribe feather differently from 



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