310 FANCY PIGEONS. 



moderate amount, which never grows quite so large as that 

 considered necessary for a show Dragoon. The striking point 

 about this pigeon is its staring or bolting eyes, which stand 

 further out of its head than I have ever seen in other pigeons ; 

 these are mostly hazel-coloured, large, bright, and surrounded 

 by a thin, smooth wattle, of about fin. diameter in matured 

 birds. The colours of those birds I saw were black or blue 

 pied, the white predominating, and some being nearly all 

 white. The black and blue patches were disposed without any 

 regularity, no two birds being exactly alike. This pigeon, 

 though a sub-variety of the Carrier, has assumed a distinct 

 type of its own, and bears a highly-bred look. I was told 

 that the breed had been brought from some of the countries 

 north of the Himalayan mountains. 



The only specimen of the Himalayan Carrier I have seen 

 in this country is at present in my possession. Going on 

 board an East Indiaman in Dundee Docks last March (1886), I 

 saw the bird walking about the quarter-deck. The captain gave 

 it to me; it is all white, with dark horn-coloured beak, and 

 orange eyes. The eye wattle, which resembles that of a show 

 Dragoon in its prime, is of a reddish purple hue; but the 

 greatest peculiarity of the bird is its bolting eyes, and the 

 great space between the irides and the eye wattles. 



