CHAPTER LXVII. 



THE TURBIT PIGEON. 



The origin of the name Turbit seems to have puzzled our old writers 

 on pigeons. It is evidently derived from the Latin, as was first pointed 

 out in the eleventh and laat edition of Moubray's Book on Poultry, 

 edited by Meall and Homer, and published in 1854. That the turbit 

 alone, among all the varieties of fancy pigeons known in England 200 

 years ago, should have had a Latin name, has caused me to think that 

 a frill breasted pigeon of some kind may have been introduced into this 

 country by the Eomana as the Columba turhata. Willughby appears to 

 have been the first writer to use the word, and though Tarhat would 

 have been the more correct form, any vowel would have rendered the 

 sound of the name. The name turbit, therefore, signifies a frilled pigeon 

 of any colour, though we now use it only for those that are white with 

 coloured shoulders. 



There are differences of opinion regarding the formation of the head 

 of the turbit. I have shewn what the old writers say about it, and that 

 Moore particularly says it should be round ; while the earliest picture 

 of a turbit I know of — that in the Treatise of 1765 — shows a pigeon 

 rather rounder in head than the owl in the same book. It is a fault too 

 often found in friUed pigeons — the choice African owl included — to be 

 flat on the crown ; but although there is no difference specified in any 

 old book between the owl and turbit head, some modern writers have 

 held for the latter being frog-headed. When or how this idea originated 

 I cannot trace, unless it was derived from what was published in Paris 

 by Boitard and Corbie in 1824. They say in their introductory notice of 

 the frilled pigeons : " Their beak is short and head toad-shaped, that is, 

 in the prettiest varieties ; the eyes are extremely projecting in the upper 

 part of the skull, where they form two well marked protuberances, as 



