OTHER BREEDS OF UTILITY PIGEONS" 57 



entire body, including flights and tail. They should have dark 

 on the ball of the eyes in England while pearl is preferred in 

 other parts of Europe. The beak and claws are almost white, 

 more so than those of colored Selfs. Young whites sometimes 

 have pinkish feathers, but these generally disappear after they 

 molt. The legs and feet are free and clean from feathers. 



Blue Runts 



The blues should be of beautiful light blue color. The head, 

 neck, flights and tail should be of a darker blue. The rump 

 should be all white or all blue in England while on the Conti- 

 nent of Europe it should be white only. Blue rump is considered 

 faulty on the Continent. The wing bars are neat and black, 

 dividing at their lower part and rejoining at the other end in 

 the shape of a long narrow "V." Between this "V" a long blue 

 triangle is seen. The tail feathers terminate with a black band 

 of about 114 inches or more. The outer side of the other feathers 

 ar'e white, beginning at the black band and extending upward 

 for about 4 inches. The beak and claws are a dark slate color. 

 Legs and feet are clean and free from feathers. 



Faults are rump splashed with colored feathers and dull or 

 smoky blue or white feathers in the flights, tail or body. 



The blues are about the biggest Runts. Sometimes they have 

 white feathers under the abdomen and on the cuff or leg. This 

 is a fault that may be overlooked, provided such feathers are in 

 small numbers. Light blues are preferred to dark blues. Blues 

 and silvers of great size and feather lengths are sometimes mated 

 to a good white in order to improve the size and the length of the 

 feathers in whites. Young blues or silvers from these matings 

 should not be mated to a pure blood blue or silver or to any 

 other Self-colored bird, but to a white. Never mate a delicate, 

 long-feathered bird to a short, cobby, broad-backed, big-chested 

 bird as no improvement will be gained from such a mating. In 

 order to secure light blues, they are mated to silvers, but here 

 the blues gain and the silvers lose in color. 



Grizzle (Pique) Runts 



I have never seen this variety out of France. They have almost 

 entirely disappeared. There are two varieties: the white- 

 speckled black and the grey-speckled black. The former are 



