340 FANCY PIGEONS. 



reason, I should admire it as a purely English-manufactured 

 pigeon. How often and how deeply have I lamented that I 

 allowed to escape the knowledge of this beautiful bird 

 possessed by my esteemed companion, the late Mr. Morey. 

 He was the only person that I ever heard give a description 

 of the thirty-two crosses by which this Almond Tumbler was 

 produced." 



Without having seen Mr. Jayne and conversed with him 

 on the subject, I should not have known what to understand 

 by the thirty-two crosses he refers to whether they were 

 merely crosses of different- coloured Tumblers to produce the 

 almond feather, or of other breeds of fancy pigeons as well, 

 to produce the Short-faced Tumbler. The latter is what he 

 meant, and as the knowledge Mr. Morey possessed is lost, 

 all I can say is that there is good evidence for my belief 

 that the Short-face has something more in its composition 

 than the common Tumbler. 



The pictures of the Almond Tumbler in the Treatises of 

 1765, 1802, and 1851, show the gradual improvements made 

 in eighty-six years. I do not put much stress on the wings 

 being carried over the tail in the 1765 and 1802 pictures, as 

 they might have been so represented on account of trailing 

 wings being considered faulty. Windus says, regarding car- 

 riage : "The bird should stand low, with a fine, prominent, 

 and full, or, as the Fanciers term it, a square chest, which 

 is thrown up considerably by the bird's elevating himself on 

 tiptoe, and thereby depressing his tail, so that the point of 

 it touches the flooring of the area, penn, or whatever place 

 he stands upon." 



As interesting to the fancier of Short-faces, on account of 

 the light it throws on the materials used about eighty years 

 ago for breeding Almonds, I here give a copy of a little 

 handbill in my possession, which is probably unique. I 

 found it, with the circular signed by Windus, in a copy of 

 the 1802 Treatise which has the autograph of Thos. G-arle, 



