88 



COLUMBA DOMESTICA LABEONlS seu PISAEUM. 



The Leghorn Runt. 



197. — The Leghorn Runt is a stately large Pigeon, seven inches or 

 better in the legs, close feathered, and fast fleshed, extremely broad 

 chested and very short in the back, he carries his tail, when he walks, 

 somewhat turned up like a duck, but when he plays, he tucks it down ; 

 his neck is longer than any other Pigeon, which he carries bending like 

 a goose or a swan. He is goose headed, and his eye lies hollow in his 

 head, with a thin skin round it much like the Dutch Tumbler, but 

 broader, his beak is very short for so large a bird, with a small wattle 

 on it, and the upper chap a little bending over the under. 



198. — They are a very tender bird (*) and great care ought to be taken 

 of their young ones, (f ) I was offered seventeen shillings for a single 

 cock, and Sir Dolbey Thomas would have given me a guinea and a half 

 for the same bird. (J) There are few true original ones of this breed in 

 England ; and if matched to a Spanish Runt, they will breed a very large 

 Pigeon, closer in flesh and feather than the Spanish Runt, and will breed 

 much faster; (§) I have killed of their young ones, which when on the 

 spit were full as large as middling spring fowls: (||) where note that 

 these and all other Runts, increase in their bulk, till they are three or four 

 years old. . . 



(Eaton.) — The Almond, the black, red, and yellow-mottled, Baldhead and Beard 

 Tumblers, of whatever coloured feather, provided it is not objectionable — the fact is, 

 a Tumbler is a TumWer for "All that and all that." All require to be equally 

 good as touching the five properties as laid down by Fanciers. A white Short-faced 

 Tumbler, possessing the five properties, with a pearl eye, would be considered a great 

 curiosity and would realise a large sum of money. I would particularly call your 

 attention to the five properties of the Tumbler, contained in my Almond Tumbler, 

 Paragraph 413 to 436. In fact, the whole of my Almond Tumbler is applicable to 

 to any other Tumbler, as touching the five properties, &c., &c. (with only the excep- 

 tion of the feather) . For what, after all, is an Almond but a Tumbler ? The cause 

 of my writing so little in this place upon the Tumbler is, having written so fully at 

 another part of the work on the Almond Tumbler and, for the last time, to rivet on 

 your memory, is applicable to all Tumblers, feather excepted. 



(* 198. Matob, p. 109.) — 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 en- 

 tirely open, and exposed to the easterly winds, with no other fence but a net which kept 

 them confined. 



(t 198. Matok, p. 109.) — For they rear but few in the season if left to bring them 

 up themselves ; therefore it would be most proper to shift their eggs under a 

 Dragon or some other good nurse, in the same manner as mentioned of the Pouter ; 

 remembering to give them a young one of some kind to feed ofi* their soft meat ; if 

 this method be pursued they will breed very well. 



(:J: 198. Mayok, p. 109.) — I have known four guineas given for a pair of these birds^ 



(§ 198. Mayor, p. 109.) — I had a hen of the Leghorn breed that weighed two pounds 

 two ounces, avoirdupois weight. 



II 198. GiRTiy, p. 83. — Some of this sort when brought to table have appeared as 

 large as a pullet ; and a certain veteran Fancier of credit has assured us, that he 

 killed a hen of the Leghorn breed that weighed two pounds and a half avoirdupois 

 weight. 



