201 FRILL-BREASTED PIGEONS. 



marking, with blue and other coloured manteaux, they also 

 describe. I understand it to mean a self-coloured, very light 

 blue pigeon, that could not bear crossing without losing its 

 peculiar colour, which is the characteristic of the English 

 powdered Owl. It may be, that the French had, in 1824, 

 such pigeons as are described in our Treatise of 1765, which 

 they called Cravate Anglais, and that from them were de- 

 scended the London powdered Owls of late years. 



So long as the powdered Owl was considered of an original 

 colour it was worth while preserving ; but as it is, at its best, 

 only half-powdered, in comparison with the Mahomet, I see 

 no reason why any special value should be put on it, more 

 especially as it is inferior in Owl properties to the best blues 

 and silvers. The colour, in perfection, should be the same 

 as that of the Mahomet in the blue, and the silver should 

 bear the relation to it that the common silver does to the 

 common blue, the same as in the Ice Pigeons. As for red 

 and yellow English Owls, they are inferior to the blues and 

 silvers, probably on account of no African Owls of these 

 colours ever having reached us with which to improve them. 

 I have seen and had red and yellow Owls of good colour, 

 however, and they probably represented the breed as it existed 

 in England when the Treatise of 1765 was written. Between 

 twenty and thirty years ago I had one pair of yellow mottled 

 Owls, marked nearly as exactly as the show mottled Tumbler 

 ought to be. I received them from Glasgow, but they were 

 imported from the Continent, I believe. Whole-coloured Owls, 

 excepting the wing bars, which are white, are mentioned by 

 the G-erman writers ; also white ones with coloured tails, and 

 coloured ones with white tails. 



The standard of the Owl requires a smooth head, as a crest, 

 and especially a peak crest, from its formation, takes much 

 from the roundness of the head. Still, peak-crested Owls are 

 not uncommon, and I have known very good ones bred from 

 the best blue English Owls. Self-coloured, peak-crested, black, 



