Foreign Tumblers. i6i 



aa we then had it, and they only wanted the ro3e on the forehead to 

 complete their trumpeter appearance. They were good in colour and 

 good performers. I have not seen any of them for several years, and I 

 am unaware if they are still to the fore in this country. 



Neumeister, on plate 7 of his book, figures nine tumblers. Two of 

 them, a red and yellow, are Calottentauhen, which I have already described 

 as the helmet. Four others, black, red, yellow, and blue, are 

 Elstertiimmlertauhen, described by me under the magpie. Another is a 

 yellow wholefeather, and the remaining two are a pair of beards, a red 

 and a black. These beards are marked differently from oura, having only 

 the white beard and white flights, the tail and all else being coloured. 

 His description of them is as follows : — " Der farhigweiszpieszige 

 Tilmmler (the coloured, white-spotted tumbler). This variety has under 

 the bill mostly a white beard of the size of a pea ' ' (not so in the 

 illustration, however, but a beard from eye to eye) ; " the six or eight 

 pinions are white, and if the tail is coloured, there must be no white 

 feathers below the rump. However, if the tail is white, this pigeon goes 

 by the name of white tail ; if head and tail are white, it is called 

 whitehead tumbler." I have seen yeUow whole feathered, stocking- 

 legged German tumblers, in no way different in size and appearance from 

 British ones, but with what Neumeister calls a swan's neck. After the 

 cock played up to his hen there was a tremulous quivering motion in 

 their necks, similar to that in the fantail and mookee, but different in 

 degree, not being so heaving and prolonged, but quicker and sooner over. 

 These were shown me by Mr. 0. Neef, of Forest Hill, who also had some 

 beautiful silver magpie tumblers, with stocking legs. On their coloured 

 breasts, however, they had a small crescent-shaped mark of white. 

 These tumblers, both yellows and silver magpies, had nothing to 

 distinguish them in head and beak from ordinary British flying tumblers, 

 but Mr. Neef had also the wonderful and highly bred German tumblers, 

 known as Ancients (Altstammer) , which bear the samerelation to ordinary 

 tumblers as our short-faces do, though they are very different from them 

 in head and beak ; but they require a separate description, being, like our 

 short-faces, a race far removed from ordinary tumblers. 



Neumeister likewise mentions the following: "As excellent flying 

 pigeons are especially to be mentioned the Berlin, the Prague dappled, 

 the Magdeburg, the Dantzig highflyer, the Vienna riser, the white 



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