62 AMERICAN SQUAB CULTURE 



and can whip any other breed of pigeons. The Maltese is a 

 splendid feeder, healthy, and takes good care of its young. As 

 squab producers they have few equals as to the size of the 

 squab and especially the amount of meat on the breast. In this 

 respect the Maltese squab is more like a quail only much larger. 



The Maltese is an old variety. Mr. Pearce writing for the 

 American Pigeon Journal stated: "The origin of the Maltese 

 like other varieties appears lo have no particular starting point. 

 When Noah went into the ark, he had several birds known as 

 doves, but possibly our Homer fanciers would claim these as 

 the first of the Homers for the fact that these doves did manifest 

 a homing instinct when one returned to the ark with the olive 

 branch. Like other creatures, when going back to the time of 

 the flood or earlier, the question of origin is as puzzling as it is 

 interesting." 



In supposing that all so-called varieties originated from these 

 original doves, the question is naturally asked: "Why the many 

 colors, shapes and sizes?" They are possibly due in part to the 

 influences of climatic conditions, effects of mineral absorption, 

 environment, freaks in nature, special selection and mating by 

 man. Thousands of reasons might be produced to partially sub- 

 stantiate the origin of all the numerous varieties. 



The Exhibition Maltese is the same as the squab producing 

 bird except it is bred smaller and more attention is given to the 

 length of the neck and legs and the upright carriage of the 

 bird. Dr. Kleeman says: "Maltese breeders and fanciers are 

 agreed that the true Exhibition Maltese with long, well arched 

 head, long, thin, curve neck, long straight legs and short coupled 

 body is one of the hardest birds to breed true to type. The 

 average pair of Maltese will raise six pair of squabs a year, 

 figuring conservatively, and out of the six pairs one can expect 

 one pair of show birds, two pairs of stock birds which lay the 

 foundation for more show birds, and three pairs of culls." 



Split tails in Maltese are very hard to overcome. This can be 

 accomplished however by mating such a bird to one that has a 

 short, full, broad tail while the bird must have an oil sack. Wry 

 tail is another defect which is very hard to overcome as it seems 

 to be hereditary. I have mated wry-tail birds — that is a left 

 wry with a right wry — but to produce the desired result the birds 

 must both have oil sacks, otherwise the off-spring will develop 



