221 FRILL-BREASTED PIGEONS. 



all the feathers are renewed. There are blues, silvers, chequers, 

 strawberries, and bar-winged reds and yellows as well, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Caridia. Most of these I have seen and bred, 

 but they are of little beauty alongside the glossy blacks, reds, 

 and yellows. The latter are full of the fatty quills about the 

 root of the tail and vent referred to in the description of the 

 Nurnberg Swallows. These feathers only shed, at most, the 

 tips of their fibres, and many of them never break at all. 



The standard of the Turbiteen, therefore, comprises all that 

 is requisite in a Turbit, with the addition of feathered legs 

 and face markings. The feathered legs give little difficulty, 

 but they occasionally come with too little or too much leg 

 and foot covering. The face markings cause much trouble, 

 as they are comparatively new. Out of several scores of 

 these pigeons which I have bred, when I kept them some years 

 ago, only four were about right in face markings. They may 

 be bred with small cheek marks, about equal on each side; 

 but nothing less than the size of a shilling to that of a florin 

 looks well. The black, red, and yellow may be interbred ; but 

 the first, with either of the last two, often produces a sandy, 

 or strawberry, which, however, frequently throws back to good 

 colour when matched with either a black, red, or yellow. It 

 must not be supposed, however, that it requires no care to 

 keep up colour in this breed. Many of them are bad in that 

 respect when compared with the best; but even the second 

 and third degrees of colour in Turbiteens would be highly 

 valued in many varieties of pigeons, which shows how good 

 they are in this feature. I never possessed an imported bird 

 of this breed with a crest, but I bred a peak-headed one from 

 a pair of smooth-heads. I consider the peak crest a fine 

 property, and difficult to breed right, therefore valuable. 



The upper mandible is generally coloured in Turbiteens, or 

 at least tipped, according to the feather, white or flesh-coloured 

 beaks being exceptional. There ought to be no hard blue, 

 however, in the beaks of blacks, reds, and yellows; the black 



