The Trumpeter. 



valuable is the pigeon. There are cocks which, with quite short 

 interruptions, drum away for ten minutes, and make themselves heard the 

 whole day, especially in spring, or i£ they get a good supply of hempseed. 

 Even when eating they drum away, and by a number of good ones a dunning 

 noise is produced. The principal sounds come rolling out of the mouth like 

 the beating of a drum, the lower mandible at the same time moving up and 

 down. The sounds become by turns stronger and weaker, and die off till 

 they can scarcely be heard. The more subdued sounds form a monotone 

 rolling, which is produced in the interior without movement of the beak, and 

 thus appearing to come from another bird altogether. There is no 

 difference in the sounds whether the crop be full or empty. The hen 

 also drums, less frequently, however, and with less force and per- 

 severance." 



It is usual, during the breeding season, to clip the trumpeter's rose, 

 not only to allow it to see better, but because it gets olagged with food 

 when feeding its young ones. 



In Germany there is a sub-variety of the trumpeter, marked like 

 the Shield pigeons, or exactly as a turbit ought to be marked, all 

 white with coloured shoulders. Neumeister figures them on plate 10 of 

 his book under the name of Bastard Tromrneltauhen. They are 

 represented with well feathered feet, but with smaller rose and crest than 

 the pure trumpeters on the same plate. The black and blue have white 

 wing bars, the red and yellow are solid shouldered. In Tegetmeier's 

 book there is a picture of a pair of these pigeons with red shoulders and 

 white wing bars, called Letz pigeons, under which name the author says 

 they had been exhibited at English shows. There was probably some 

 mistake in the naming of them — perhaps the Latz was meant — at least, I 

 cannot find the name in any German book. Brent says, in the " Poultry 

 Chronicle," that ^'lats-chi(/e" — rough slippered — is a German provincial 

 name for the trumpeter. 



Neumeister also figures another sub-variety, the reverse in marking of 

 the preceding, viz., all red and yellow with white shoulders. These 

 probably come out of the nest self-coloured, and moult white sided, like 

 tumblers and runts. Boitard and Corbie describe some varieties of the 

 trumpeter, which M. Corbie brought from Germany, the breed having 

 become scarce in France at the time they wrote. These are the above 

 red and yeUow white sides, whole blacks with white wing bars, grey 



