The Jacobin. 201 



the jacobin, trumpeter, and some other varieties, can be moved by them 

 at will, so that they assume different positions at different times. The 

 jacobin in the Treatise is certainly a maned bird, and Brent wrote in the 

 Poultry Chronicle of 20th September, 1854, when describing the jacobin : 

 ' ' At the lower part of the chain the feathers turn out all round, and 

 expose a centre spot of white down." Exactly so ; the rose is the centre 

 of chain, tippet, and mane. The following is what the German author, 

 Neumeister, says : " The feathery ruff rune along the sides of the 

 neck, down over the angles of the wings, reaches upwards over a part 

 of the crown, like a cowl, forming the mane (mahne) towards the back 

 part of the neck. This feathery ruff is parted along the sides of the neck 

 towards the front, the back, and the top." From all the foregoing, 

 nothing could be more clear than that the mane is not a modem property 

 of the jacobin. I am inclined to believe, that the mere assertion that it 

 was modem has been the cause of most of the late disturbance, some 

 fanciers being so conservative that they oppose on principle all new 

 ideas. Be that as it may, let the perfect, or something like perfect, 

 maneless jacobin be brought out if it can be produced, and there will 

 not be two opinions regarding its claim to be called a high-class pigeon. 

 I do not, however, expect to see it, not believing it to be natural. 



Another hallucination regarding the jacobin, is, that its head and beak, 

 or its marking, were derived from the bald-headed tumbler. It was a 

 short-faced bird before the short-faced tumbler was in existence. It 

 would be something like a hundred years after WUlughby described it, 

 before a short-faced baldhead was produced. The baldhead is first 

 described, in 1765, among common tumblers. Is it for its marking that it 

 is a relative of the tumbler ? Then why not choose the German monk, 

 priest, ringbeater, or even the old bald-headed German pouter, for its 

 ancestor, not to mention the Indian mookee and plenty more ? I do not 

 know how Aldrovand's picture of a jacobin is marked, if it figured in 

 his book, but I know from WiUughby, that Mr. Cope told him the 

 jacobin was bald-headed in 1676. To say that it derived its marking 

 from the tumbler, is about on a par with what a "judge " once said 

 to me at a show, when I asked him why he had entirely passed some 

 very good baldheads in a class of flying tumblers. "Give a prize to 

 these things," said he ; " why, they're bred from jacobins." I could 

 only sigh as I turned away, for I quite lost the power of speech. In 



