243 POUTING PIGEONS. 



There is certainly much in the description of the Uploper 

 which agrees with that of the Norwich Cropper, and, if 

 Moore had said that it was marked like the Pouter, I should 

 consider the breeds identical. The Uploper was, however, a 

 self-coloured Cropper, and Moore could not say positively 

 that there were pieds among the breed. While the shape, 

 carriage, and general characteristics of the Norwich Cropper 

 are well described by Moore in his account of the Uploper, 

 its merry disposition and peculiar flight is, to a slight extent, 

 mentioned in his description of the Pouting Horseman; but 

 I cannot consider the latter to be the same variety, for it 

 was evidently much nearer the Pouter in size, nothing like 

 6in. to 6iin. in limb being found in pure Croppers. Nor have 

 Croppers the slightest indication of ever having been crossed 

 with the Horseman, their heads and beaks being of a pure 

 Blue Bock Pigeon formation. That the Norwich Cropper, as 

 it exists, is a much older and more constant breed of pigeon 

 than the English Pouter I am well satisfied of, but I have 

 no means of knowing how long it has existed, or how it was 

 originally produced. Its marking, like the Pouter's, is found 

 in several Continental breeds of Croppers, and the probability 

 is, that both our Pouter and Cropper were gradually bred up 

 from Continental varieties, perhaps brought here by immi- 

 grants in the Middle Ages. Gonzales, in his account of Britain 

 (1730), says of Norwich: "The worsted manufacture, for which 

 this city has long been famous, was first brought hither by 

 the Flemings, in the reign of Edward III., and afterwards 

 improved to great perfection by the Dutch, who fled from the 

 Duke d'Alva's bloody persecutions." 



The properties of the Norwich Cropper are size, shape, 

 carriage, feather, and flight. Flight is, indeed, the chief 

 point with many, who, though they may admire all the other 

 points, consider them as of little consequence if a bird cannot 

 perform well in the air. The German writers, Neumeister 

 and Priitz, mention certain peculiarities in the flight of some 



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