The Tumbler. 153 



are, however, many yellow, red, and hazel eyed birds, as good performers 

 as ever flew ; bnt I am describing the tumbler as it ought to be when 

 shown, and as it is in many lofts where kept only to be flown, for good- 

 looking birds, that are good performers as well, may be got by selection 

 from the immense numbers kept in every large town. I have seen good 

 clean legged tumblers with shell crests, and also peak-headed ones. I 

 once bred several peaked yellow whole feathers from a pair of smooth- 

 headed ones. I could only account for this variation as a natural sport. 



The tumbler may be got in all the principal colours, such as whole 

 blue, silver, black, red, yellow, dun, and white ; and in such infinite 

 variety of mottles, grizzles, and splashes, that it would be no difiicult 

 matter to put up a hundred matched pairs, any one of which might 

 easily be distinguished from the rest. Birds are matched together for 

 their excellence in tumbling, no matter what colour they are, and they 

 therefore produce a great variety of curiously coloured and marked off- 

 spring. It is generally from tumblers so matched up for their powers of 

 tumbling, that the house and ground tumblers are produced, and, 

 accordingly, many of them have little in their appearance, from a fancy 

 point of view, to recommend them in the way of feather. Such are 

 out of place in the show pen, however, for which the colours must be 

 pure and good to enable them to compete successfully. 



Show tumblers are sub-divided — at Kilmarnock, for instance, where they 

 have long been favourites, and where they have an extensive classification 

 — into self colours, mottles, baldheads, and beards. I am of opinion that 

 foreign elements have been in some cases introduced into the breeding of 

 the self colours and mottles to give colour, and that few of the pretty 

 birds to be seen at shows would be of much account in a flight ; but there 

 is this to be said of showing tumblers, that independently of performance 

 in the air, they are worth show recognition from a fancy point of view, 

 while the Antwerp carrier or voyageur pigeon of Belgium is not. The 

 show tumbler should have, in the first place, all the character in shape 

 of head, beak, and body of the best type of the real performing tumbler, 

 and on no account have about the head, even a suspicion of any cross 

 with the short-faced tumbler. Many people erroneously think, or used 

 to think, that the half or quarter bred short-face, being neater in 

 head, is better for the show pen ; but this absurd idea is on the wane, 

 if not altogether eradicated. There is a medium between shortness and 



