COLOURS OF BAEBS. 103 



the wliole fancy. We have had whites very fair in skull and 

 wattle ; but they fail as a rule in the beaks being too long and 

 straight, and the beak-wattle too rough. The other colours have 

 been so mixed up by breeders, that every colour (except of course 

 white) has been , known to be produced by the same pair of 

 parent birds during one season. In other breeds dun is usually 

 kept to match with black, and only jet black sometimes allowed 

 to mix with red or yellow blood ; hence the reds and yellows are 

 kept pure. But in Barbs the result of the general mixture is 

 that reds are very seldom sound in colour all over, the rump 

 and tail being generally dun or slate-colour, owing to the dun 

 blood in the strain. 



These circumstances make breeding for colour very diflScult 

 in Barbs, especially as regards yellows. In other pigeons it is 

 usual to cross this colour with red ; but the impure colour in 

 red Barbs makes this cross comparatively useless here, and as 

 a fact, all the best yellows about which we have inquired have 

 been bred from yellow mated to rich black. The black cross is 

 also excellent with reds, and may in either colour be employed 

 either way. If reds and yellows were crossed exclusively with 

 rich blacks until the dun tails were bred out, and duns confined 

 to crossing with blacks, no doubt the colours of Barbs would 

 speedily be both improved and rendered more certain. Dun is 

 as a rule the best cross with black, owing to the propensity of 

 blacks to develop dark beaks and pinched eye-wattles. The 

 duns, on the contrary, have much more frequently large soft 

 eye-wattles (though they are apt to be pale in colour), and 

 white beaks, hj which the faults in the black are corrected. 

 Whites are of course bred together when good enough, but 

 might be vastly improved by crossing with light-coloured duns, 

 and then breeding back the pied produce to white again. 



Barbs being so uncertain in colour, and as regards yellow 

 peculiarly so, an experiment recorded by Mr. J. Firth in the 

 direction of systematic breeding for it is very instructive and 



