The Nun. 69 



and yellow headed. From the contrast, the black la the favourite colour, 

 and it exceeds in number all the other colours together. I shall take the 

 black first in my description, and, although it is comparatively easy to 

 breed this colour good, yet many nuns are to be found very oif-coloured 

 in their black. These, however, have their value in breeding, for it will 

 be found in breeding every variety of pigeon that two birds, each of 

 the best possible shade of colour, do not generally throw such good 

 colour, as one of very good colour and another — not of bad colour but — 

 sUghtly off in colour. I could not understand for long why this should 

 be so, but the solution of the mystery is no doubt the fact that nature, 

 having reached a certain pitch in artificial forms of life, is inclined to 

 reaction. 



The very best specimens of all fancy stock are often failures when 

 mated with others equally good ; while with those slightly inferior to 

 themselves, but well come, they perpetuate their highest qualities. 



The black nun, however good in colour, must not carry a light beak like 

 other black-headed pigeons such as barbs, which are preferred white- 

 beaked ; but its beak should be as black as possible, and I may say it 

 never is white-beaked as far as I have noticed. The head, as far back 

 as the shell, which should stand up purely white, must be black. As the 

 shell feathers grow with a forward inclination, and those of the crown 

 of the head backward, the latter, where they meet the shell feathers, take 

 an upward turn and form the support of the shell. If all the backward 

 growing feathers of the crown are black, the shell will therefore have a 

 black lining, which, being unwished for, causes the dodging exhibitor to 

 cut or pluck them, and so show a clean white shell. 



When the young nun is about twelve days old the head feathers wiU, 

 in a good one, be black only a little way behind the middle of the crown, 

 and those feathers which adjoin the rising shell wUl be white. By the 

 time the feathers are full grown the black wiU then reach the shell, but 

 not rise against it. The black head of the nun runs round the corners 

 of the shell, so that when the bird is viewed from behind two black 

 pointed patches are seen, and the colour runs down the sides of the neck 

 to the breast, with a wide sweep, forming the bib, which, the bigger and 

 more evenly out it is, the higher the bird is valued. 



The fiight feathers, that is, the ten primaries, should be black. 

 Moore only speaks of six coloured flights in the nun, but nothing under 



