145 PIGEONS OF PECULIAR VOICE. 



sometimes like a Finnikin, but much larger, which are reckoned 

 the better sort, as being more melodious." 



The Bokhara Trumpeter Pigeon. 



It would be of no advantage to minutely describe the 

 Trumpeter as we had it before 1865, because the Central 

 Asian breed, which was imported shortly after that date, put 

 it entirely into the shade. The best we used to have were 

 Blacks, Black Mottles, and Whites, though Duns, Reds, and 

 Yellows were occasionally to be met with; and I once bred a 

 very good Blue Mottle. The new breed, coming here via 

 Russia, received the name of Russian Trumpeter, which is 

 what the Germans call such birds as we formerly had, because 

 they are said to be found in their greatest beauty in the 

 neighbourhood of Moscow. It is not, however, a native of 

 Russia, but of Bokhara, in Central Asia, and its appearance 

 in Europe was, no doubt, the effect of the Russian conquests 

 in the East during late years. At the same time, choice 

 Trumpeters may have existed for a long while in the interior 

 of Russia ; but if they have, I doubt not they originally 

 came from Asia. Finding these choice birds described by 

 Neumeister and Priitz as Bucharische Trommeltauben, I in- 

 quired of several German gentlemen the meaning of the 

 name whether it signified Bucharest or Bokhara but no one 

 could decide. Afterwards, however, in the course of a corre- 

 spondence with Mr. Charles Jamrach, of London, regard- 

 ing some of these pigeons brought here by a Russian, he 

 informed me that the man actually brought them all the 

 way from Bokhara, with other live stock. So I think it 

 is conclusive that they are a Central Asian breed, which 

 has only lately reached us in its purity, all previous im- 

 portations of Trumpeters having either been inferior, or 

 allowed by Europeans to decline in quality; while, on the 

 other hand, it is possible that, when European fanciers 

 did nothing to raise the character of what they had, the 



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