210 FANCY PIGEONS. 



crossing with, the Turbiteen been resorted to during the past 

 few years, that I imagine few fanciers could say for certain 

 that their red and yellow Turbits, if fit to hold their own 

 in strong competition, were of pure English blood. Beds and 

 yellows, when anything like right in colour, show any foul- 

 ness on their under body very distinctly ; when poor in colour, 

 foul thighs hardly show on them; hence, I have known them 

 called clean-thighed and vented when so hopelessly foul on 

 these parts that, had their colour been even fair, they would 

 have been unfit to put into a pen. Black, red, and yellow 

 Turbits, especially black, when of rich colour, have their 

 eye wattles of a reddish tint. 



The blue Turbit has also been crossed with foreign blood, 

 but not to any great extent. The best birds of this colour 

 generally show a sexual difference in colouring, the hens 

 being of a duller and more smoky tint than the cocks. The 

 colour in cocks is sometimes very clear and delicate ; so much 

 so, that white will hardly show on it, and this light blue 

 is even preferred by some. It is a matter of taste, but I 

 prefer a darker and more vivid blue, like the colour of the wild 

 Rock Pigeon. The delicate blue is too near an approach to 

 silver, and I think the more pronounced the colours, the 

 better they look from an artistic point of view. Such a beau- 

 tiful rich blue as I have had in Triganica Pigeons would only 

 require to be seen to have its superiority allowed. The wing 

 bars of the blue should be of a deep black, broad and distinct. 



The silver Turbit should be of a creamy dun, with bars of 

 the darkest glossy dun, merging into black. To have really 

 black bars on the silver ground is, perhaps, not an im- 

 possibility, but I have never seen them. When I consider 

 that bright red and yellow bars can be seen on rich blue 

 Triganica Pigeons, black bars on a silver ground may not be 

 incompatible with Nature. So very light in colour are foul 

 thigh and vent feathers on silvers and the light blues, that 

 it is scarcely possible to distinguish them, and so they often 



