174 Fancy Pigeons. 



when the beak is distorted in the shaping of the skull, as it often is, it is 

 then quite unfit to keep itself free from parasites. The signs to know a 

 made-faced bird are, first, when it is up-faced, which is never natural ; 

 and if the lower mandible protrudes beyond the upper at the point, it 

 may be taken as certain that the operator has been at work. Wry beaks 

 are, no doubt, often produced naturally in short-faces, but there is some- 

 thing about a natural wry beak different from one which is the effect of 

 shaping the skull. The natural wry beak, though crossing at the point, 

 generally fits closely further back, which is not the case with the other. 

 As I have seen many short-faces of high quality which I know were 

 never tampered with when young, I would not condemn the whole 

 race, as some do, because manipulated birds may sometimes get away 

 undetected ; but I would hold for absolute disqualification of all birds 

 which clearly showed they had been tampered with, because the whole 

 system of making heads is a swindle, and only done to obtain money 

 under false pretences. 



Many a man hag gone into the short-faced fancy, and finding he could 

 never produce birds anything like so good as those he began with, for the 

 simple reason that they were unnatural, has given it up in bewilderment ; 

 or, learning how the thing was done, he has become a modeller himself, 

 and then cheated others as he was cheated himself. The decline in this 

 fancy is principally on account of the unsatisfactoriness of merely pro- 

 ducing quality in pigeons by hand. Honest men wish to hreed quality, 

 not to make it with a wooden spoon. I think it may be safely said, that 

 when a bird does not show that something has been done to it, there 

 has been so little done that it may be allowed to pass as natural ; but 

 when the skull has been forced in, the upper mandible is always displaced 

 to a certain extent, and a bird showing this should invariably be passed 

 over. The under mandible may be turned up, but it cannot bo forced 

 back. I think that it depends on the judges whether the short- faced 

 fancy is to decline stdl further, or whether it is to rise again. The short- 

 face itself is naturally a charming pigeon, beautiful in all its standard 

 colourings and original in many ways ; but it has occupied a higher 

 position in the fancy than it was entitled to, probably on account of 

 being a native production. It may be safely left to find its own level. 



Since writing the foregoing, there has come into my possession a set of 

 eight life-size oil paintings of fancy pigeons, one of which is an almond 



