Colours of Fancy Pigeons. 47 



silTers and powdered blues are fonnd in owls, though not with such 

 an intense powdering as in the Mahomet, powdered mealies and yellow 

 mealies might, I think, be bred in time, if wished for. Some of the 

 mealy show Antwerps have already much powdering on their head and 

 neck feathers. Through inter-breeding with other colours, there are a 

 great number of off-coloured barred pigeons, such as kite-barred blues 

 and reddish-barred blues ; but all such are undesirable, each body 

 colour being required pure of itself, and accompanied with sound bars to 

 suit it. 



When colour fails altogether in animals, an albino or white specimen 

 is the result, and such are found among dovecote pigeons. Albinos, 

 when bred with coloured pigeons, produce particoloured young, and 

 this is the foundation of all white markings in fancy pigeons. A rarer 

 freak of nature, however, than an albino, is when the normal colour 

 of an animal is turned into black, which is known as a melanoid. 

 Melanoids occur in animals living in a state of nature, such as 

 leopards, jackals, hares, and rabbits. I have not known of this natural 

 change occurring in field dovecotes, but there can be little doubt that 

 the black colour in tame pigeons is owing to this natural propensity, 

 and that it is the foundation of all whole solid colours, such as red, 

 yellow, and dun. These solid colours, to be in perfection, should be 

 uniform all over the bird, and not fall away to a lighter shade on the rump, 

 wings, tail, belly, thighs, or vent. They advance in value accordiug to 

 the difEiculty of producing them, blacks and duns being easy of 

 acquisition, compared with reds and yellows, which latter are the choicest 

 colours in fancy pigeons. To be seen in perfection, they must be seen 

 on a whole-feathered bird, or at least on a bird whose standard 

 of marking does not require a white flight and tail, for the colour 

 of these in a whole-feathered red or yellow is the crucial point in 

 judging of their quality of colour. Black, red, and yellow of the 

 choicest shades must be lustrous, with metallic sheen, the black being 

 green and the red greenish-purple, in certain lights. Yellow has also an 

 orange lustre, interspersed with light green on the neck feathers, but 

 there are but few yellow pigeons that show such rich colour, and it 

 requires a strong light to show it, even when present. Dun of the dark 

 shade, as in barbs, if dark and solid, also shows a greenish lustre ; but 

 the light or dull dun, so often seen in carriers, seldom carries any lustre 



