81 PIGEONS OF COLOUR. 



legs and feet are sometimes feathered, but in general are 

 smooth; and the head, though usually uncrested, has 

 sometimes a turn crown. The irides are red, and the beak 

 and nails black. Although the Starling Pigeon is found in 

 several colours, the Black variety is the one most esteemed, 

 and it should be of a deep satin black, with a purple 

 metallic lustre, and strongly pigeon-necked. On the breast 

 there should be a crescent of white, and the evener this 

 is cut the more the bird is valued. It is produced by the 

 feathers forming it being tipped with white, and only comes 

 to perfection on completion of the first moult. Two 

 white bars cross the wings, which, with the crescent, are 

 in the nest feathers usually of a rusty red, or kite colour. 

 With age the Starling often loses its marking to a great 

 extent, the crescent becoming large and shapeless, the ends 

 of its nights becoming grizzled with white, and its head 

 grey, or spotted with white. The white crescent and wing 

 bars on the lustrous black ground being all the marking 

 desired, such a standard is not easy to maintain in all 

 the progeny, the birds being either too dark or too light. 

 Blue and Bed Starling Necks, though also obtainable in Ger- 

 many, are not considered so beautiful. The crescent on the 

 breast not being, as in the English Pouter, composed of 

 white, but only of white-tipped dark feathers, I believe this 

 kind of marking on a really sound Red is not easily attain- 

 able, and that such a Bed as can be got with these marks 

 combined fails to look well. 



Neumeister says of the Starling : " By reason of its parti- 

 cularly recommendable qualities for fielding, it is absolutely 

 to be preferred to all other fancy pigeons that have to find 

 most of their food. It has almost always at the same time 

 young ones and eggs side by side, and seeks its food in any 

 weather, summer or winter, so long as the ground is not 

 covered with snow. For breeders of the finer species of 

 pigeons it is highly valuable, inasmuch as it feeds almost 



I 



