THE MAGPIE AUD MAHOMET PIGEONS. 



Moore, in his " Columbarimn," ia describing this variety 

 of toy pigeon, says, " This pigeon is much about the size 

 of a nun, or somewhat bigger. The head, tail, and flight- 

 feathers of the wings, are always of one colour, as black, red, 

 or yellow ; and I have been informed there are some blue, and 

 aU the rest of the body white, so that the chief difference 

 between them and the nun is, that they ha^fe no hood on the 

 hinder part of the head, and are gravel-eyed." He farther re- 

 marks, " They are called helmets, from their heads being covert 

 with a plumage which is distinct in colour from the body, and 

 appears somewhat like a helmet to cover the head." 



THE MAdPIE. 



This pigeon, a descendant of the once celebrated German 

 magpie-tumbler, has been of late years so neglected as to have 

 lost all pretension to gymnastic ability, and has altogether 

 sunk to the insignificant level of a " toy." The head, neck, 

 crop, the scapular feathers, and the tail, are coloured, — as 

 black, blue, red, yellow, &c. , The wings, the lower part of the 

 breast and thighs, are white; and in the accuracy of their 

 marking their value consists. The scapular feathers, being 

 dark, overlay the upper part of the wings, which cause them 

 to appear somewhat narrow. They are called, according to 

 colour. Black Magpies or Bed Magpies. 



THE MAHOMET. 



In a treatise on Pigeons published in 1795, this old fashioned 

 member of the pigeon family is described as " nearly of a 

 cream colour, with bars across the wings as black as ebony, 

 the feathers very particular, being of two colours : the upper 

 part or surface of them appearing of a cream, and underneath 

 a kind of sooty colour, nearly approaching to black, as are, 

 likewise, the flue feathers, and even the skin, which I never 

 observed in any other pigeons but these ; its size much like 

 that of a turbit, with a fine gullet, and in lieu of a frill the fea- 

 thers appear Hke a seam ; the head is short, and inclined to be 

 thick, hath an orange eye, and a small, naked circle of black 

 flesh round the same, and a beak something resembling a bull- 

 finch's, with a small black wattle on it." 



Naturalists are, it would seem, not at all agreed as to the 

 classification of this pigeon. There is in Germany a breed of 

 pigeons between the Turkish and the Scandaroon, and, accord- 

 ing to Bechstien, when these " are of a particular blackmottled. 



