Chapter XXIIL 



POUTING OR CROPPER PIGEONS. 

 The English Pouter Pigeon. 



| HIS noble pigeon has always been considered 

 one of the finest varieties, sharing, with the 

 Carrier, the premier position in the fancy 

 since the time when we have any records on 

 the subject. It is referred to by "Willughby 

 as follows : " Croppers, so called because they can, and usually 

 do, by attracting the air, blow up their crops to that strange 

 bigness that they exceed the bulk of the whole body beside. 

 A certain Hollander informed Aldrovandus that these Kroppers 

 Duve, as they call them, are twice as big as the common 

 Domestic Pigeons, which, as they fly, and while they make 

 that murmuring noise, swell their throats to a great bigness, 

 and the bigger the better and more generous they are 

 esteemed. Those that I saw at Mr. Cope's, a citizen of 

 London, living in Jewin Street, seemed to me nothing bigger, 

 but rather less than Runts, and somewhat more slender and 

 long-bodied. These differ no less one from another in colour 

 than the precedent" (i.e., Bunts). 



Meagre though this description be, we can learn from it 



