160 THE PRACTICAL PIGEON KEEPER. 



Jacobin itself, this pigeon was so far unsettled when Moore 

 wrote that bare and feathered legs were acknowledged indis- 

 criminately, and even the chain was evidently far from perfect. 

 Equally wrong are those we allude to in ascribing the new 

 points to the last few years, or the " last ten years," as one 

 writer has done. Both Moore, and "Mayor" thirty years 

 later, describe as the "Ruff" a pigeon resembling the Jacobin, 

 but larger, in which " the feathers of the hood and chain are 

 much longer," though not so compact and close as the other ; 

 and both state that the Jacobin was matched to this bird 

 " in order to improve their chain," and was thus bred larger 

 and with some tendency to more looseness of feather. Though 

 both disapproved of this, it is therefore established by their own 

 evidence that this chain of breeding had already set in ; and 

 Mr. Brent, so far back as 1850, describes the " rose." The 

 modern properties are, therefore, no craze of "one or two 

 late judges," as has been stated, but can, at least, boast a 

 respectable antiquity, and are the legitimate effects of attempt- 

 ing to develop an acknowledged property. 



On the other hand, we hold that there has been far too 

 much stress, comparatively, laid in recent years upon mane and 

 chain, with the accompanying " rose," to the neglect of other 

 properties; and this, according to our opinions expressed 

 already concerning other breeds, is in our view a grave error. 

 The neglected properties have chiefly been hood (defect in which 

 we have often seen condoned for good chain), short face, and 

 size, or rather, want of it. "We might, perhaps, add slimness of 

 girth, which, as in a Pouter, we consider an important 

 property in a Jacobin. And while we like a good mane, we 

 hold that it should not be allowed to outweigh the want of the 

 other properties, and should only be developed so far as con- 

 sistent with them. With this brief exposition of the disputed 

 question, we proceed to the pigeon itself. 



The head of a Jacobin should be that of a short-faced, or 



