292 Fancy Pigeons. 



Horaeman'a Blood. They are a very merry Pigeon upon a House, and by 

 often dashing off are good to pitch stray Pigeons, that aro at a Loss to 

 find their own Home ; they breed often and are good Nurses, generally 

 feeding their young ones well. I have known these Pigeons to be six 

 Inches and six and a half in Legs ; they are a hearty Pigeon, and, give 

 'em but Meat and Water, need very little other Attendance. Some of 

 them will home ten or twenty Miles." 



There is certainly much in the description of the uploper which agrees 

 with that of the Norwich cropper, and if Moore had said that they were 

 marked alike, I would consider the breeds identical. The uploper was, 

 however, a self coloured cropper, and Moore could not say positively that 

 there were pieda among the breed. While the shape, carriage, and 

 general characteristics of the Norwich cropper are well described by 

 Moore in his account of the uploper, its merry disposition and peculiar 

 flight is, to a slight extent, mentioned in his description of the Pouting 

 Horseman ; but I cannot consider the latter to be the same variety, for it 

 was evidently much nearer the pouter in size, nothing like 6in. to 6iin. in 

 limb being found in pure croppers, nor have they the slightest indication 

 of ever having been crossed with the Horseman, their heads and beaks 

 being of a pure blue rock pigeon formation. That the Norvrich cropper, 

 as it exists, is a much older and more constant breed of pigeon than the 

 English pouter, I am well satisfied of, but I have no means of knowing 

 how long it has existed, or how it was originally produced. Its marking, 

 like the pouter's, is found in several continental breeds of croppers, and the 

 probability is that both our pouter and cropper were gradually bred up 

 from continental varieties, perhaps brought here by immigrants in the 

 middle ages. Gonzales, in his account of Britain (1730), says of Nor- 

 wich, " the worsted manufacture, for which this city has long been 

 famous, was first brought hither by the Flemings, in the reign of 

 Edward III., and afterwards improved to great perfection by the 

 Dutch, who fled from the Duke d'Alvas' bloody persecutions." 



The properties of the Norwich cropper are size, shape, carriage, 

 feather, and flight. The latter is, indeed, the chief point with many, 

 who, though they may admire aU the other points, consider them as of 

 little consequence if a bird cannot perform weU in the air. The German 

 writers, Neumeister and Priitz, mention certain peculiarities in the flight 

 of some of the continental pigmy pouters ; but that similar peculiarities 



