172 Fancy Pigeons. 



its head, with neither an upward nor downward inclination, and as short 

 and as fine as possible. The beak wattle should be small and delicate in 

 appearance, any coarseness being considered a great fault. The portrait 

 of an almond by Wolstenholme, in Eaton's books, shows the perfect beak. 



Head. — The head ought to be very lofty, broad, and overhanging the 

 beak if it can be got. Though the skull itself may not do so, the feathers 

 growing out from the forehead sometimes give it that appearance in a 

 fine bird, which then has a deep stop or indentation at the root of the 

 beak. The head itself ought to be round from all points of view, and 

 when the cheek feathers are puffed out, or muffed, as it is called, it adds 

 wonderfully to the natty appearance of the short-face. 



Eye. — The iris ought to be white or pearl coloured and surrounded by 

 a fine and narrow eye wattle, of which the less there is the better. A full 

 and prominent eye adds greatly to the appearance. The faults of eye are 

 a reddish pearl, a dusky or clouded iris, and a broken eye, which looks 

 very bad and spoils the appearance of any bird. 



As the almond feather is a composite one, made up of various colours, it 

 is preserved by the judicious crossing of its various sub- varieties, such as 

 kites, duns, agates, and wholefeathers. Kites are of various shades, 

 from such as are almost black, with only the primaries bronzed with 

 yellow, to such as have the yellow cast on their feathers more or less all 

 over them, especially on the breast. Duns also show the yellow on their 

 neck and breast feathers when rich in colour, and are then called golden 

 duns. Duns are almost invariably hens, and when bred from two well- 

 grounded almonds, are useful for matching with a rich almond. Agates 

 are such as are red or yellow, splashed or mottled with white. They are 

 of various markings, some showing a preponderance of colour, and others 

 of white. Wholefeathers are either red or yellow, and when sound in 

 colour through flights and tail (which is sometimes seen in reds and very 

 rarely in yellows), they are both valuable for almond breeding and for 

 themselves, as they are the choicest of the sub-varieties of the almond. 

 Black splashes, or what might be called black agates, appear to have 

 been formerly used in almond breeding ; but this colour seems to have 

 been bred entirely out of our modern birds, which is perhaps the cause 

 of the black pencilling in our almonds being usually of a kitey or dun 

 black ; and on this account a cross of a good black mottle or mottle-bred 

 black might be of advantage. Even the darkest kites always show a 



