The Trumpeter. 185 



feather, were more liable to have their long toe feathers broken, which 

 partly acoonnted for the want of them. Their toe feathers want the 

 strength of those of the old tight plumaged birds, and seldom reach their 

 natural length without damage. I have noticed that birds bred from good 

 imported ones, when inclined to closeness of plumage, which is faulty, 

 grow stronger toe feathers. It is almost impossible to preserve these 

 feathers unbroken, for any length of time after the moult. An examina- 

 tion of the feet will always show what strength of feather the bird is there 

 naturally furnished with, though the feathers may be broken off short. 



Colour and Marking. — The Bokhara Trumpeters are chiefly blacks, and 

 blacks mottled or splashed in some way with white, though both duns and 

 dun mottles have been imported. The beak is almost always white, and 

 is a pleasing feature in the breed, as it looks well just appearing from 

 under the rose. The bird I sketched my illustration from was a very fine 

 dun mottle, with a strong red cast through its dun feathers. It was not 

 marked as I have drawn it, but was almost half white with dark flights 

 and tail. As a standard to breed from, I think the marking shown in 

 the illustration, which is the same as is wanted in the short-faced mottled 

 tumbler, is preferable to any gayer marking ; but so long as the white 

 is disposed in single feathers, a bird mottled on the head and neck, as 

 well as on the wing coverts and back, looks very well if the tail, flights, 

 under parts, and leg and foot feather remain black. Many trumpeters 

 are nearly white, but I have not seen any of the highest class entirely so. 



Some are all black except the head and upper neck, which sometimes 

 remain nearly white ; and if the rose alone could be got white, or even 

 lightly grizzled, the rest of the bird remaining black, it would look very 

 well, and such a marking might in time become fixed if bred for. I under- 

 stand from the Rev. T. E. C. Williams, who was lately travelling on the 

 Continent, that blood red trumpeters of the highest class are in existence. 

 He informed me that he saw a pair of them in Paris, and an idea of their 

 rarity and value may be learned from the fact, that the price asked for 

 them was i8130. He described them as fine in colour and well luatred. I 

 have no doubt that there must be yellows as well. I would not grudge 

 going a hundred miles to see either. I have never bred any of the new 

 trumpeters, but my experience with the former kind, both here and in 

 India, with English ones, showed me that they alter very much in feather 

 during their first moult ; after which I always found them to moult with- 



