Angnat 16, 1877. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



145 



will be allowed to go by unchallenged. If a broken-coloured, 

 the back or saddle should be wholly of the dark colour without 

 any white hairs. The head should be pretty dark, and the ears 

 quite so. The markings of the head, as of the body, should be 

 regular, and sometimes the face presents a very pretty appear- 

 ance. The various forms of smuts are all pretty, but the 

 butterfly smut is the prettiest of all. At one time the head 

 markings were thought a great deal of, but now all has given 

 way to the ear rage. 



The Lop is not very prolific, nor is the doe quite as good a 

 mother as some of the other breeds ; hence nurse does are 

 generally used, Dutch being the commonest and the best. In 

 disposition they are a little Bpiteful often, and are not very good 

 pets. As they are very delicate and require a great deal of extra 

 care, they are not the best breeds to begin with. — Geta. 



FANCY PIGEONS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



When recently in London I went to the British Museum to 

 inspect the new acquisitions in sculpture from Ephesus, and 

 having gazed my fill upon the wonderful chiselled stones of the 

 temple of the great goddess Diana, which not only St. Paul 

 might have seen but must have seen, I not unnaturally took a 

 turn among the stuffed birds, admiring the admirable manner 

 in which they are "set-up"— so life-like, so true to nature are 

 eye and attitude ; particularly is this the case with the Raptores. 

 Along the wall the specimens are wonderful, but perhaps the 

 very best and most striking is the Eagle Owl or great Horned 

 Owl, which Btands out clear towards the centre of the room. 

 The bird is standing in the attitude of anger or combat, almost 

 every feather separated and erect. This is a marvel in the art 

 of taxidermy. Going on further I sought out the Columbidaj, 

 and the foreign varieties are excellent, but on searching for the 

 English fancy Pigeons I was grievously disappointed. Up in a 

 corner, high up and not easy to see, are a group of mere objects 

 — bad specimens of fancy Pigeons to begin with, birds that would 

 never take a prize in the smallest show. Then, in addition, 

 they are wretchedly stuffed, evidently by an artist in taxidermy 

 who had no idea of the points of fancy PigeoDS. Their con- 

 dition is not good either. They more resemble the class of 

 stuffed birds one sometimes sees at a country auction. Ap- 

 parently they are very old as well as very inferior, and wholly 

 unworthy a place in our great imperial, for it is more than 

 national, for it is not the English but the British Museum. I 

 saw a red Jacobin, long-beaked and badly frilled, with wrong 

 eyes and the not only low cut— that might not be objected to by 

 some — but with a dash of white going down the neck. A strange- 

 looked bird is marked as "a Horseman." There are Tumblers 

 not Tumbler-shaped ; indeed, the whole group, happily half 

 hidden in a corner, are unworthy of their names and place. Now 

 that we have more than one admirable Pigeon artist it would be 

 easy surely to stuff birds according to the pictures given by 

 Mr. Harrison Weir or Mr. Ludlow. I think it is a matter of 

 much regret that fancy Pigeons should be so badly represented 

 in the British Museum. The ornithological authorities cannot 

 be ignorant that at the Crystal Palace there have been for years 

 exhibitions of fancy Pigeons of singular beauty of form and 

 feather, and while the Museum gathers the best of all kinds and 

 varieties of birds, it is hardly right therefore that so beautiful a 

 class should be so miserably represented, and that the British 

 Museum should be so behindhand. These specimens were col- 

 lected probably in dayB when a Jacobin was a Jacobin and that 

 was all, and few cared or knew about superior specimens or in 

 what superiority consisted. Now it is all altered, and I should 

 like that admirers of Pigeons should be able to go to the Museum 

 to see good birds properly " set up." There would be no diffi- 

 culty, for the very beBt PigeonB are from their delicacy fre- 

 quently dying, and their skins could be procured. 



As a contrast to the stationariness of the British Museum I 

 must notice the advance of the London bird shops. I took a 

 stroll through the Seven Dials and some other localities where 

 Pigeon shops are to be met "with. In most of these there is a 

 marked improvement upon the mongrels formerly to be seen. 

 Even fair Pouters are in cages for sale. Evidently the sweep- 

 ings of good lofts come into the bird-dealers' hands now, and not 

 merely birds to be sold so much a dozen as Blue Rocks. The 

 mark of progress in the fancy is shown now very generally in 

 both London and provincial bird shops. Better poultry, often 

 capital Bantams, Pigeons of a higher class, and Canaries muoh 

 superior to the very common sorts seen in dozens in former 

 years. I can only hope that improvement will in due time reach 

 the British Museum. — Wh.tshibe Rectos. 



APIARIAN EXPERIENCES IN 1877.— No. 2. 

 I eobgot to mention that I had given the bees of my strong 

 stock five sectional supers (Abbott's pattern) about the 16th of 

 May, in the hope that they would fill it with apple-blossom 

 honey. They took to it in force, almost occupying its whole 

 length ; but, owing to the wretchedness of the weather, all they 



did was to make two small bits of comb up to the time of their 

 swarming on the 31st. I then took oft these sections and gave 

 them to another hive, where again I was disappointed, as the 

 bees swarmed and no honey was to be had, the cells being 

 merely enlarged somewhat, then filled and emptied by the bees 

 themselves. So I fear that I shall have no experience to report 

 with regard to sectional supers this year. I see in my notebook 

 a i entry at that date in the following terms : — " Never knew so 

 puor a year for honey. Not a single pound visible anywhere. 

 Still feeding two stocks." 



My next strongest Btock swarmed on the 8th of June, by which 

 time the weather had much improved, and almost a glut of 

 honey followed, but only for a few days. This swarm (alluded 

 to before) behaved strangely ; first trying to get into an empty 

 hive adjoining, which had some clean comb ready for use, but 

 many of the bees entered the hive below, out of which came 

 swarm of May 31st. Then trying to settle on an Apple tree, they 

 finally returned to their own hive, but in considerably diminished 

 numbers. It became evident by the hive piping before the re- 

 issue of this swarm on the 18;h of June that they had lost their 

 queen during their first attempt. Aa I said before, my belief is 

 that at that time their queen entered the hive below and perished 

 there. Be this as it may, the swarm again returned home, their 

 instinct leading them to prefer a well-filled hive to the chances 

 of starvation at a separate establishment in so unpromising a 

 season, for by this time all honey-gathering had ceased again. 

 Fearing this result, and wishing to increase my number of hives, 

 as soon as they had re-entered the parent stock I drove out the 

 whole available population and made a strong swarm thereof, 

 hiving them in one of my largest hive boxes. This was put in 

 the place of the parent stock, which I shifted to another part of 

 the garden. Of course there was an abundance of brood coming 

 on, and several royal cellB in every stage of development. When 

 I left home on the 9th of July these bees, both swarm and parent 

 stock, were doing as well as the circumstances of the bad season 

 would allow. 



On the 22nd of June — expecting a strong stock of black bees 

 to swarm which had partially filled a small super, and wishing 

 to substitute a half-bred Italian princess for their own queen — 

 I drove out the whole population, killed their black queen on 

 the spot, and hived them in a Woodbury bar-framed hive. This 

 had been prepared beforehand by adjustment within the frames 

 of several combs of pure Italian brood taken out of a weak stock 

 whose queen had been imported by me last September. On the 

 same day I had previously driven the pure Italian bees with 

 their queen into a temporary box, but I subsequently turned 

 them into the hive out of which I had driven the black beeB. 

 I thus gained a double object, italianising a common English 

 stock and strengthening a weak Italian one. 



With regard to the Woodbury, I have to remark that on ex- 

 amining it on the 4th of July I saw a beautiful Italian princess 

 (very lively) perambulating the combs ; she was therefore but 

 twelve days exactly in being reared, and the bees can have lost 

 not a moment of time in replacing their old queen. 



My last operation before leaving home on the 23rd of June 

 was similar to that just described. My sole remaining stock of 

 black bees waB deprived of its queen and made to change hives 

 with a weak hive of hybrid Italians which had just reared a 

 prolific young queen. — B. & W. 



PLEASURES AND PROFITS OF BEE-KEEPING. 



Some people keep bees for pleasure, some for profit, and some 

 for both. In some instances pleasure and profit are bound to- 

 gether and go hand-in-hand. I keep bees for profit, and in 

 doing so derive a large measure of enjoyment. Bee-keepers 

 with open eyes and ears have grand times amongst their bees. 

 How often a Btroll through the apiary drives " dull care away." 

 What lessons of contentment and unity, fraternity and equality, 

 industry and cleanliness, may be learned from bees. How 

 many hundreds and thousands of times have I after nightfall 

 placed and gently pressed my ear against the sideB of hives to 

 listen to the wonderful hum inside. What a wonderful buzz 

 is there heard night and dav continually. It is a hum of com- 

 motion and concord, of health and activity. No sound of dis- 

 cord, no jarring note is heard in any part of a bee hive. Bees 

 have not time to grumble, nor occasion for grumbling, as every 

 inmate of a hive works willingly and unerringly. Injustice and 

 wrong-doing find no place in a bee hive. Magistrates and au- 

 thority of all kinds are unnecessary. All the working inhabitants 

 are free-horn citizens with unfailing courage and loyalty. While 

 human beings lock their doors and go to bed, and while the 

 millioned city of London is lulled into quiet for a few hours 

 after midnight, the hum of a bee hive goes on unceasingly. 



And what real enjoyment the bee-keeper has from seeing his 

 favourites at work outBide carrying home water for the day before 

 honey can be had, before the dew evaporates, in seeing them 

 afterwards going off in continuous streams to the fields and re- 

 turning with heavy loads of pollen and honey, in witnessing the 

 expansion of the city by comb-building, the increase of popu- 



