13i OUR DOMESTIC FOWLS. 



colour is black, blue, or dun, — birds of the 

 latter tint being bigbly prized, if perfect in 

 other qualities. The neck is long and slender, 

 the shoulders wide apart and strongly knit, 

 and the breast muscular. The eye is animated, 

 •with the iris of a fiery red, a rosette or Avide 

 rose-like circle of white fungous skin, sur- 

 rounds the eye, and is even elevated (in 

 mature birds) above the level of the skuU. 

 This circle, about the size of a shilling, should 

 be uniform, — free from irregularities, and well 

 developed. The beak is long,* straight, and 

 stout, especially at the base, which is sur- 

 rounded by a large mass of white fungous 

 skin, greatly elevated above the base of the 

 upper mandible, and advancing on the fore- 

 head. This protuberance or wattle should be 

 regularly formed, rise boldly, and spread 

 broadly across the beak.f The head is long 

 and narrow, and the skull should be flat or 

 even depressed on the top, and of contracted 

 breadth between the elevated rosettes. For 

 perfect birds, great prices are demanded ; and 



* From an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half, along the 

 gape. 



t The fungous excrescence is only a development of the soft 

 pulpy skin at the base of the upper mandible in the ordinary 

 pigeons, -vvhere the nostrils are situated, 



