The English Carrier. 253 



Colour. — The carrier ought to be self-coloured, and is found black, dun, 

 blue, silver, chequered, and white. Moore says, at p. 28 of his " Colum- 

 barium," "Its Feather is chiefly black or dun, tho' there are Hkewiae 

 blues, whites, and pieds of each Feather, but the black and dun answer 

 best the foregoing Properties ; yet the bines, and blue pieds are generally 

 esteem' d for their Scarcity, tho' they will not usually come up to the 

 Properties of the foregoing Feathers." This statement remains generally 

 true after a lapse of nearly a century and a half. The black ought to 

 be deep and glossy, showing no dulness on the wing coverts, or with 

 wing bars of a darker colour, as is often the case. A white beak, 

 or the same with a black tip to the upper mandible is admired, as 

 often accompanying lustrous colour, but though a white or flesh coloured 

 beak in a black carrier is allowable, it is not a sine qwl non. Strictly 

 speaking, a black pigeon ought to have the beak and toe nails black, 

 just as a white pigeon must have them white. A white pouter without 

 a coloured feather on it would lose all chance in competition if dark 

 beaked ; a white beak in a black pouter would be a serious fault ; and a 

 black-headed nun with a white beak would have no chance in competition 

 whatever, however good otherwise. How, then, does it come that black 

 pigeons, such as carriers and barbs, are allowed to have white beaka^ 

 and are admired with such P The reason is that in breeding the different 

 self colours together in barbs, and the black and light-beaked dun in 

 carriers, the flesh-coloured beak often remains in the best coloured 

 blacks, so that it has come to be considered by many as correct ; how- 

 ever, some of the best coloured pigeons I have ever seen — the turbiteens 

 — have generally in black, red, and yellow, beaks coloured according 

 to their feather. 



Regarding the colour of the wattles in the carrier, Moore says : " This 

 Flesh is in some Carriers more inclinable to a blackish Colour, which 

 is generally the more valued." At the present time, the whiter they are 

 in the colour of the wattles the better they are liked. Pigeons of brilliant 

 colour are generally inclined to run reddish in the flesh round the eyea, 

 and carriers are occasionally seen so marked in this respect that very 

 good ones have been distinguished aa "red eyed." Many have 

 decidedly reddish flesh-coloured wattles. 



The usual method in breeding carriers is to freely cross the black and 

 dun colours. By this means the black is more easily kept good than by 



