Chap. V. DESCRIPTION OF BREEDS, 155 



expansion and their upward direction are more remarkable c'naractera 

 than their iucreased number. The tail is capable of the same move- 

 ments as in other pigeons, and can be depressed so as to sweep the 

 ground. It arises from a more expanded basis than in other pigeons ; 

 and in three skeletons there were one or two extra coccygeal vertebrae. 

 I have examined many specimens of various colours from different 

 countries, and tliere was no trace of the oil-gland ; this is a curious 

 case of abortion.'^ The neck is thin and bowed backwards. The 

 breast is broad and protuberant. The feet are small. The carriage 

 of the bird is very different from that of other pigeons; in good 

 birds the head touches the tail-feathers, wliich consequently often 

 become crumpled. They habitually tremble much : and their necks 

 have an extraordinary, apparently convulsive, backward and forward 

 movement. Good birds walk in a singular manner, as if their small 

 feet were stiff. Owing to their large tails, they fly badly on a windy 

 day. The dark-coloured varieties are generally larger than white 

 Fantails. 



Although between the best and common Fantails, now existing in 

 England, there is a vast difference in the position and size of the 

 tail, in the carriage of the head and neck, in the convulsive move- 

 ments of the neck, in the manner of walking, and in the breadth of 

 the breast, the differences so graduate away, that it is impossible to 

 make more than one sub-race. Moore, however, an excellent old 

 authority," says, that in 1735 there were two sorts of broad-tailed 

 shakers {i. e. fantails), " one having a neck much longer and more 

 slender than the other ;" and I am informed by Mr. B. P. Brent, 

 that there is an existing German Fantail with a thicker and shorter 

 beak. 



Sub-race II. Java Fantail. — Mr. Swinhoe sent me from Amoy, in 

 China, the skin of a Fantail belonging to a breed known to have 

 been imported from Java. It was coloured in a peculiar manner, 

 unlike any European Fantail ; and, for a Fantail, had a remarkably 

 short beak. Although a good bird of the kind, it had only 14 tail- 

 feathers ; but Mr. Swinhoe has counted in other birds of this breed 

 from 18 to 24 tail-feathers. From a rough sketch sent to me, it is 

 evident that the tail is not so much expanded or so much iipraised 

 as in even second-rate European Fantails. The bird shakes its neck 

 like our Fantails. It had a well-developed oil-gland. Fantails 

 were known in India, as we shall hereafter see, before the year IGOO ; 

 and we may suspect that in the Java Fantail we see the breed in 

 its earlier and less improved condition. 



*^ This gland occurs in most birds; species of Columba, which are desti- 



but Nitzsch (in his ' Pterylographie,' tute of an oil-gland, have an unusual 



1840, p. 55) states that it is absent number of tail-feathers, namely 16, 



in two species of Columba, in several and in this respect resemble Fantails. 



spscies of Psittacus, in some species of '* See the two excellent editions 



Otis, and in most or all birds of the published by Mr. J. M. Eaton in 1852 



Ostrich family. It can hardly be an and 1858, entitled ' A Treatise on 



accidental coincidence that the two Fancy Pigeons.' 



