104 Fancy Pigeons. 



and are probably the original colours. In appearance runts are like 

 huge common pigeons, smooth-headed and smooth-legged, but having a 

 rather heavy eye and beak wattle as they get old. The irides are generally 

 orange in the blues and lighter in the silvers, and the eyes lie deep in 

 the head, which, when viewed from before appears narrow and pinched, 

 considering the size, of the bird. As to size, a matured pair of birds 

 (cock and hen) weighing less than -ilb. are considered small, and 

 51b. may be considered the maximum, although I have not heard of any 

 being quite so heavy. From -lib. 12oz. to lib. 15oz. has been often reached 

 by show birds. 



The illustration is from the cock of a pair of red runts I got from 

 Messrs. Baily and Son, who imported them from France. Although in 

 general shape and carriage of body they resemble the blue variety, they 

 at once proclaim themselves of a different race. The irides are pure 

 white, and form a very striking feature in them. The eye wattle is 

 heavy in front and pinched behind, and, with the beak wattle, is of as 

 bright a red as in the barb. The under mandible is much broader than 

 the upper, even when shrunk in matured birds ; while with young ones 

 in the nest this point is so developed that it gives them a very strange 

 appearance. In colour they are of a rich, deep, burning red, glossy with 

 metallic lustre, and within very little of the best red I have ever seen 

 in any domestic pigeons. I have also had yellow runts of the same race 

 as these reds, and as good for their colour, but they were mottled in 

 the way the short-faced mottled tumbler ought to be marked, that is, rose 

 pinioned on each wing, and handkerchief backed. The marking was just 

 about as accurate as it could be painted in a picture. I am astonished, 

 therefore, that considering all these fine properties of colour, marking, 

 real pearl eyes, and large size, anyone should write of the runt as having 

 only the one point of size. In France these fancy runts are to be had in 

 black, red, and yellow, both self-coloured and mottled. Pure whites 

 with pearl eyes are, I believe, the rarest. They are all very bad fliers, 

 and although good breeders, the young are somewhat delicate and difiicult 

 to rear. The fancy coloured ones do not reach the great size of the 

 blues and silvers, and from -ilb. to 4^-lb. a pair is a good weight for 

 them. Being powerful pigeons, runts should not be kept with small 

 varieties. When to great strength a spiteful disposition is joined, as it 

 often is with them, they become rather dangerous to other pigeons. 



