134 FANCY PIGEONS. 



plentiful, only to be seen of high quality now and then, as 

 the Pouter or Turbit, it would be a beautiful and telling 

 variety in an aviary of different kinds, and likely to breed 

 very true to its characteristics. I know those I had were 

 often picked out by strangers as the most beautiful pigeons 

 in my aviary. 



The Mahomet shows the powdered blue colour in the very 

 highest degree, and has the power of reproducing its colour to 

 a great extent when crossed with a blue or silver pigeon. 



The Capuchin Pigeon. 



A pigeon under this name was described by Moore, who 

 says that it is in shape and make very like the Jacobin, 

 but something larger in body, longer in beak, with a 

 tolerable hood, but no chain, though in feather and other 

 properties the same. He says : " Some will assert it to be 

 a distinct Species, but I am more inclinable to imagine it 

 is only a bastard breed from a Jacobin and another Pigeon; 

 however, thus far I am sure, that a Jack and another will 

 breed a Bird so like it, as will puzzle the Authors of this 

 Assertion to distinguish it from what they call their separate 

 Species." 



Remembering what Moore has said of the Mahomet and 

 Narrow-tailed Shaker, I doubt if his half-bred Jacobin was 

 really what some fanciers asserted to be the true Capuchin. 

 Moore evidently knew the motto, viam aut inveniam aut 

 faciam, and it puzzles me to hear of any fancier asserting 

 a half-bred Jacobin to be a distinct species ; however, if there 

 was a pure race, as described, known as the Capuchin then, 

 we do not know it now, for its description cannot apply 

 to the bird we now class under that name. 



The Capuchin was first imported into England, and first 

 described in Fulton's book, by my friend, Mr. H. P. Caridia, 

 of Birmingham. It is, he says, a native of one locality of Asia 

 Minor; and those I have seen are certainly of pure and 



