348 FANCY PIGEONS. 



witli its tiny beak, to free itself entirely from them; and, when 

 the beak is distorted in the shaping of the skull, as it often 

 is, the bird is quite unfit to keep itself free from parasites. 

 The signs to know a made-faced bird are when it is up-faced, 

 which is never natural; and if the lower mandible protrudes 

 beyond the upper at the point, it may be taken as certain that 

 the operator has been at work. Wry beaks are, no doubt, often 

 produced naturally in Short-faces, but there is something about 

 a natural wry beak different from one which is the effect of 

 shaping the skull. The natural wry beak, though crossing at the 

 point, generally fits closely farther back, which is not the case 

 with the artificial one. As I have seen many Short-faces 

 of high quality which I know were never tampered with when 

 young, I would not condemn the whole race, as some do, 

 because manipulated birds may sometimes get away undetected; 

 but I would hold for absolute disqualification of all birds which 

 clearly showed they had been tampered with, because the whole 

 system of making heads is a swindle, and only done to obtain 

 money under false pretences. 



Many a man has gone into the Short-faced fancy, and 

 finding he could never produce birds anything like so good 

 as those he began with, for the simple reason that they were 

 unnatural, has given it up in bewilderment; or, learning how 

 the thing was done, he has become a modeller himself, and 

 then cheated others as he was cheated himself. The decline in 

 this fancy is principally on account of the unsatisfactoriness 

 of merely producing quality in pigeons by hand. Honest 

 men wish to breed quality, not to make it with a wooden 

 spoon. I think it may be safely said that when a bird does 

 not show that something has been done to it, there has been 

 so little done that it may be allowed to pass as natural ; 

 but when the skull has been forced in, the upper mandible 

 is always displaced to a certain extent, and a bird showing 

 this should invariably be passed over. The under mandible 

 may be turned up, but it cannot be forced back. I think 



