“ Scatliff Strain” of Turbit 
The history of the production of the “ Scatliff 
strain” of turbit affords a good example of the 
kind of difficulties that confront the breeder. 
Pigeon fanciers require that the ideal turbit 
shall have, among other things, an unbroken 
“sweep,” that is to say the line of the profile 
from the tip of the beak to the back of the head 
should be the arc of a circle. As a rule this line 
is broken by the overgrowth of the wattle at the 
base of the beak. Mr Scatliff, however, has 
succeeded in breeding a strain which possesses 
the required description of profile. 
“In the year 1895,” writes Mr H. P. Scatliff 
on page 25 of The Modern Turbit, ‘1 visited 
Mr Houghton’s lofts and purchased three or four 
extra stout and short-beaked stock birds... . 
The following year I mated one of these to one 
of my own black hens, and reared one of the 
most successful show birds ever bred, viz. 
‘Champion Ladybird,’ a black hen. . . . Most of 
_the leading judges and many turbit breeders 
remarked upon this hen’s wonderful profile, which 
seemed to improve as she got older instead of 
getting worse, as is usual in rather coarse-wattled 
birds. I, too, had remarked this, and it opened 
my eyes to a point in turbit breeding which I 
had never heard mentioned by any turbit judges 
or breeders, and which I believe I am now 
pointing out for the first time in print, viz. that 
the feathers over her beak wattle which formed 
gr 
