CHAP, iv.] COMPARISON OF BREEDS. 147 



The reader may here be disposed to ask, which is the 

 most advisable sort of Pigeon to keep ; to which we re- 

 ply that tastes differ ; please yourself without consulting 

 others. If handsome, court-yard, table-birds are de- 

 sired, we should much be disposed to recommend the 

 larger breeds. But Runts, for some reason which is 

 not very clear, are held in but little esteem in England. 

 Fanciers disregard them because they are neither ele- 

 gant in shape, beautiful in feather, nor pleasing in flight. 

 Their size ought to recommend them for economical 

 purposes, unless our climate, so unlike that of their 

 native birth-place, the shores of the Mediterranean, is 

 unfavourable to their profitable increase. But their 

 great size makes them remarkable ornaments to the 

 aviary, and their history, as far as we can guess at it, 

 ought to attract the attention of the naturalist. 



" The Leghorn Runt," says the Treatise on Domestic 

 Pigeons, " is a stately large Pigeon, some of them seven 

 inches, or better; in legs, close feathered; and firm in 

 flesh, extremely broad-chested, and very short in the 

 back ; he carries his tail, when he walks, somewhat 

 turned up, like a Duck's ; but when he plays, he tucks it 

 down ; his neck is longer than any other Pigeon's, which 

 he carries bending, like a Goose or a Swan. [Some of 

 these particulars show an approach to the Fan tails.] He 

 is Goose-headed, and his eye lies hollow in his head, 

 with a thin skin round it much like the Dutch Turn- 

 biers, but broader ; his beak is very short for so large a 

 bird, with a small wattle (cere?) on it, and the upper chap 

 a little bending over the under. Mr. Moore says they are 

 a very tender bird, but I must beg leave to dissent from 

 that opinion of them, having kept them several winters 

 in a little shed or room, one side of which was entirely 



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