76 THE PEACTICAL PIGEON KEEPEK. 



produced another fault of late years. There has not been room 

 for the immense wattles produced, and the eye-wattle cannot, 

 therefore, grow circular in many birds, but is much deeper from, 

 top to bottom than it is in width from side to side : in fact, what 

 should be a circular curve in front becomes a near approach to 

 a straight line. This fault has become so common that many 

 judges as well as exhibitors condone it, and are satisfied if the- 

 perpendicular oval thus produced has as much behind the eye as 

 in front. But we must contend that the standard thus set up 

 is a false one, which destroys all aesthetic beauty in a Carrier, 

 and is yet another example of the evil of developing any one 

 property so as to impair others, or out of due proportion. 



Lastly, the eye-wattle is to be as nearly as possible of equal 

 thickness all over. Obviously, as we want the head to be 

 narrow, this uniform thickness should not be great, or the 

 character of the head is destroyed ; and this brings us to a 

 very important question in Carrier breeding. There are totally 

 different classes of eyes. The best is a thin type, but fuU of 

 small wrinkles, arranged nearly in concentric circles, like the 

 petals of a flower, and which, on this account, is termed by 

 some fanciers a " rose " eye. It occurs of different sizes, and of 

 slightly harder or softer texture ; the former kind, when large, 

 standing up high above the skull, like pieces of thick cardboard; 

 the latter having more tendency to roll inwards towards the 

 median line of the head. All eyes of this kind, however, are 

 of harder texture than those to be presently described, and are 

 therefore comparatively free from the " spouts " which are so 

 troublesome in the fleshy eyes. For the same reason, however, 

 it is very diflicult to get them very large without a faUing-of 

 in beak-wattle, no bird appearing able to develop above a 

 certain total quantity of this more solid material, and any great 

 excess in either being, therefore, counterbalanced by deficiency 

 in the other. But we have seen many birds with an inch of 

 this kind of eye which had splendid beak-wattles ; and as an 



