2i8 Fancy Pis^cons. 



should be of a lio;ht creamy dun body colour, with very dark dun wing 

 and tail bars, merging into black, and with lustrous dun hackle. White 

 rumps in both are faulty, but cannot be regarded in blue and silver 

 pigeons as of the same degree of magnitude that they would in the 

 solid colours. The chief defects are indistinctness and bad colour of 

 wing bars, ticked or slightly chequered wing coverts, sometimes showing 

 indications of a third bar, and too light body colour and hackle, tlirough 

 crossing with the powdered blues and silvers ; which latter, as varieties 

 of the blues and silvers, require special mention, as they have a history 

 of their own. 



As the author of the " Treatise on Pigeons" (1765) says, regarding 

 blue owls, '* the lighter they are in colour, particularly in the hackle, 

 the more they are valued," a distinction not recorded by Moore thirty 

 years previously, and, as the true Mahomet pigeon, unknown to Moore, 

 was well described by the author of the above quotation, I have thought 

 that it had been made use of in his time to produce the colour known as 

 powdered blue, as it certainly has of late years. The powdered blue 

 and silver English owls of our day were, however, bred in London about 

 the year 1S5.5, according to a letter extant in the Live Stock Journal 

 of 187S, signed Harrison Weir, who states therein that they were 

 produced by himself and the late Matthew Wicking. When requested by 

 me, in the same publication, to state how they were bred, if it was no 

 secret, Mr. Weir made no sign. I have considered that the appearance 

 in London of a pair of true Mahomets about the year 18.50, as mentioned 

 by Brent, had some connection with the powdered owls which appeared 

 soon afterwards. That they sported from common blues is very unlikely ; 

 but from the long mousy faces and freedom from gullet of any I over saw, 

 they might have been bred from the German ice pigeon, which has much 

 of the same colouring as the Mahomet. The late Mr. James Wallace of 

 Glasgow, with the Mahomet pigeon already mentioned by me, and a 

 blue English owl, bred beautifully powdered birds, wanting the frill, 

 which he recovered by the next cross of these half breds with blue owls, 

 though at the expense of some colour. These quarter Ijred Mahomets 

 were equal in powder and better owls than any of Mr. Weir's breed I 

 ever saw. Some mystery seemed to be made out of the production of the 

 powdered owl in London ; but there is really no mystery in the matter, 

 for, even if it was not produced as I say, similar coloured and better 



