A 



TREATISE 



ON 



BREEDING AND MANAGING 



THE 



ALMOND TUMBLER. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE BIRD. 

 FEATHER. 



imagine to yourself, taking into your aviary or loft some inexperienced friends 

 who have expressed a great desire to see some Almond Tumblers, wliat would be 

 the first thing that would attract their attention. Feather would strike some — 

 Shape or Carriage would rivet the attention of others ; but if, on the contrary, you 

 took experienced Fanciers into your aviaries or lofts, and asked them which they 

 considered the grandest property of the five, my impression is that they would say, 

 Shape or Carriage ; nevertheless, it is my intention in giving a description of the 

 five properties to take Feather first; not that I consider feather the grandest 

 property of the five, but from the bird deriving its name from the feather, and 

 from the rich and variegated colours striking the eye of the general observer. 



It is the decided opinion of all Fanciers, that the ground or foundation of the 

 feather should be, strictly speaking, a rich bright yellow, but the difficulty to 

 obtain it, and intermix, split or break the yellow feather with a decided black, I 

 think is scarcely attainable : a fuct, that has been established by many careful and 

 t)ft repeated experiments by the most able Fanciers that have ever lived; we must, 

 therefore, be content with having the ground of the bird a rich bright almond 

 colour, but the inside of the shell of the almond nut is the best colour, and the oldest 

 Fanciers are unanimous in opinion that this beautiful and very valuable species 

 derived its name — " Almond," because the ground of the bird is, or should be, a 

 rich bright almond colour. 



The standard authorised or laid down by the ColUmbarian Society, as regards the 

 Feather, is as follows, three colours, namely, black, white, and yellow, in the nine 

 first feathers of each wing, counting from their extremities, and twelve in the tail ; 

 the aforesaid three colours well developed would constitute a standard, but the 

 back, breast, and rump, should he likewise variegated to be complete in feather ; 

 the hackle or neck feathers should be bright and well broken with the same colours, 

 end should resemble the delicate touches of the pencil of a fine artist. 



There are gentlemen in the Fancy who have asserted, that they liaVe had soma 

 80 truly beautiful and spangled, that have had few feathers in them but what liave 

 contained the three colours that constitute the Almond — black, white, and yellow, 

 variously and richly intermixed ; and that after breeding them a considerable 

 time, rejecting those tliat ran from feather, and judiciously matching the good 

 feathered ones together, have brought them to such great perfeciiou, tliat they 

 should have been surprised to have bred any others than Almonds. There are 

 some so magnificently elegant in feather that their flight, tail, back and rump, 

 have resembled a bed of the finest and best broken tulips that can be imagined, or 

 a piece of the best and most highly polished tortoiseshell, for the more they are 

 variegated, particularly in the flight and tail, provided the ground be yellow or it 



