lyo Fancv Pic;coiis. 



almond feathered pigeons of some sort, brought from France under the 

 name of AUemand pigeons, originated the name. Such coloured French 

 tumbler pigeons are described by Boitard and Corbie in 1821, as the 

 Pigeon cidbiitant Savoyard, as I have already mentioned. 



Taking the almond as the representation of all the short-faced tumblers, 

 it may be described as a very small pigeon, only larger than the African 

 owl, and it is generally said to have five proi^erties of feather, carriage, 

 head, beak, and eye. 



Featlier. — A standard almond is one having its twelve primary tail 

 feathers, and its primary flights, whether nine or ten a side, composed of 

 the three colours, black, red, and yellow. A bird of nine a side, all standard 

 feathers, is preferable, in my opinion, to one with ten a side having 

 only nine in each wing standard feathers, because it is full flighted ; but 

 if the bird with ten a side had only the shortest flight in each wing out 

 in colour, it would be much nearer perfection than if any of its other 

 flights were wrong in colour. There are, however, so many other 

 properties in the almond, that it is unlikely that such close competition 

 wiE often arise but where it is a case of showing standard birds only, the 

 whole of the flight feathers, whether nine or ten a sido, must show the three 

 colours. The ground colour of the almond should be of as deep and rich 

 a yellow as can be got ; but it is generally either mealy and spotty in 

 colour, or of a reddish yellow, which can neither be called red nor ycUow, 

 hke unpolished mahogany wood. As the most diSicult thing is to produce 

 the bright yellow ground, which, indeed, has been seen but seldom, it 

 is the point of most consequence ; in fact, however good in head and beak 

 a bird may be, it is not a real almond if it has not the ground colour. If 

 the bird does not come out of the nest of a good ground colour on back, 

 wings, and rump, it can never attain to it later in life. The ground colour 

 being right, it must be pencilled over with black, of as intense a deepness 

 as possible, not in any particular pattern, but to show well as a whole. 

 This pencilling ought to increase with the autumnal moults till the bird is 

 from two to three years of age, when it comes to its best, after which it 

 gets annually darker, till it becomes more black than yoUow, and the tail 

 and flights lose their standard character through absence of white. Even 

 then the bird is beautiful, though past its best from a standard point of 

 view. In the Treatise (1765) the author says, at page 57, "I have had 

 some in my collection that have had few feathers in them but what have 



