154 F(i)icy Pigeons. 



too great length of face, and betvreen too thick and too thin a beak for 

 the show tumbler. I have known a quarter-bred barb win all through a 

 season as a common black tumbler. The barb cross gave colour, pearl 

 eyea, and a white beak ; but the latter was too thick, and there was too 

 much beak and eye wattle to deceive me. The reddish tinge on beak 

 and eye wattle was no conclusive proof of the cross, because this 

 accompanies fine colour iu black, red, and yellow, and I have had the 

 very best performers so coloured in the eye wattles. The black, red, and 

 yellow ought to be as sound, and aceomxiianied with as much metallic 

 lustre, as possible. Glossy blacks may be seen, but I have never seen 

 reds and yellows within many shades of the colour to be seen in many 

 foreign pigeons. These colours not being iu the breed, therefore, in 

 their best possible tints, any crosses with other varieties which do 

 possess them, must inevitably result in the loss of the tumbling pro- 

 pensity, however much all the appearance of the pure tumbler may be 

 retained ; but as the tumbling propensity is of no moment, and cannot 

 be tested in the show pen, 6hai:)e and feather are all that are looked for 

 in the tumbler aa a show pigeon. 



As some races of tumblers of the best quality, as regards performances 

 in the air, and which have been kept to feather to a certain extent, I 

 may mention the red mottles, not marked so exactly as the show 

 mottles (to be afterwards mentioned), but being mottled over the whole 

 wing coverts, and often with white feathers in the neck, tail, and flights ; 

 black and yellow mottles of the same character \ blacks with white flight 

 feathers, white beaks, and reddish eye wattle ; whites ticked on the neck 

 with red ; and, lastly, almond feathered ones. I have known fanciers 

 confine themselves to some of these breeds, and by careful selection of 

 such as were good flyers and performers, establish flights which would 

 breed very true to feather. 



I may here mention a well-known variety of the flying tumbler, known 

 as the Macclesfield tippler, which must only make single turns in its 

 flight. Some of these birds are very fine flyers, and so rapid in their 

 tumbling that the eye can scarcely follow them. I believe the tippler 

 is of various colours, but there is one especial marking which I have 

 seen many of, that is, white, with dark head, flights, and tail. The 

 marking is generally kity-black, the fli^'ht feathers showing sometimes 

 black, brown, and white. The marking of the head is not cut off 



