283 WATTLED PIGEONS. 



shared, with some Arabian gazelles, the care and attention of 

 their owner. 



The earliest description of the English Carrier known to 

 me is Willughby's. He describes these birds as " of equal big- 

 ness with common pigeons, or somewhat less, of a dark blue or 

 blackish colour ; their eyes are compassed about with a broad 

 circle of naked, tuberous, white, furf uraceous skin ; the upper 

 chap of the bill is covered above half way from the head with 

 a double crust of the like fungous skin." The beak is described 

 as black in colour, and not short, but of a moderate length. 

 " Of this kind," he says, " we saw in the King's aviary in St. 

 James's Park, and at Mr. Cope's, an embroiderer in Jewin 

 Street, London." Mr. Cope would seem, from the repeated 

 mention of him by Willughby, to have been a very prominent 

 fancier in London then ; and King Charles II., in addition to 

 his fondness for the breed of spaniels which now bears his 

 name, was evidently a Carrier fancier. " Charles was also 

 extremely fond of sauntering in St. James's Park, where he 

 would feed the birds, with which it was well stocked, with his 

 own hands, and on these occasions very much preferred being 

 attended by only one or two of his personal friends rather than 

 by a retinue." This may be found in the short account of the 

 King's personal history in Bonn's edition of Count Grammont's 

 "Memoirs of the Court of Charles II." 



It seems strange that, among the many admirers of the 

 Carrier, no one should have written a treatise on it, which 

 might well have been done, considering how much there is in 

 connection with it worth writing about. Some enthusiastic 

 fancier may yet do as much for this pigeon as "Windus and 

 Eaton have done for the Almond Tumbler. What might have 

 become a monograph on the English Carrier was begun, in a 

 serial way, in the pages of The Pigeon, by its editor, Mr. 

 Thomas M. Denne, of London, but was never completed, on 

 account of the cessation of that journal through the ill-health 

 of that gentleman. 



