114 Fancy Pigeons. 



beyond those of similarly sized pigeons. To see how these measurements 

 would compare with those of the pouter, I measured a blue pied cook of 

 19iin. in feather, and found that his out-stretched winffs covered 37in., 

 and that one of his tail feathers was no less that Sfjin. in length. 

 The swift stands low on unfeathered legs, is smooth-headed, and is 

 represented by lilr. Ludlow as an owl-headed, gulleted pigeon, with a 

 narrow flesh-coloured eye cere and yellow iris. In colour there are 

 said to be blues, chequers, almond feathered ones, both dark and light, 

 mottles, and some are of a chocolate colour, heavily shot with yellow 

 on the neck and wing coverts, which latter is the colour ho has chosen 

 for his illustration, and which might be called an exaggeration of the 

 golden dun found in short-faced tumblers. As represented by Mr. 

 Ludlow it is a very beautiful colour, and one not found so pronounced 

 in any other variety I know of. 



Instead of being an advantage to the swift in flight, its long wings 

 are an impediment to it, as the feathers are thin and weak in texture. 

 Like the hawk swallow it rises from the ground with difBculty, but, 

 unlike it, it cannot make use of its long wings when once in the air. 

 I once, when my age could be told by a single figure, caught a swift 

 swallow in a garret, which I played with on the grass for some time, 

 as it never attempted to fly away ; but happening to throw it slightly 

 from the ground, it went off like a shot from a bow. 



Mr. Ludlow says the swift is hardy and long lived, one cook, an old 

 one on his arrival in Birmingham, in 18G4, having lived tiU 1875. 

 Regarding the age of fancy pigeons generally, there was lately a notice 

 in the Field newspaper of the death of a white trumpeter, belonging to 

 Mr. Gates, formerly an exhibitor of this breed, at the age of 22 years, 

 which is the same age as the pigeon WUlughby (1C76) refers to in 

 the following passage : — " Albertus sets the twentieth year for the term 

 of a pigeon's Ufe. As for tame pigeons (saith Aldrovandus), a certain 

 man of good credit told me that he had heard from his father, who was 

 much delighted in pigeons and other birds, that he had kept a pigeon 

 two and twenty years, and that all that time it constantly bred, excepting 

 the last six months, which time, having left its mate, it had chosen a 

 single life. Aristotle assigns forty years to the life of a pigeon. Adrov. 

 Ornithol. tom 2, page 370." 



The oldest pigeon I ever had was a common flying tumbler, red 



