92 THE PRACTICAL PIGEON KEEPER. 



thick, evenly-shaped beak;" and a montii or two later* 

 he gave as his ideal the portrait on the opposite page of a 

 mature hen. On comparing this recent Birmingham hen with 

 the hen drawn in 1870, we see how the beak has become 

 shortened and thickened, the skull less flat, the wings and tail 

 shorter, the body plumper, and the neck widened more rapidly 

 to the shoulders. In brief, and without wasting further space 

 in details, a simple comparison of the three drawings will show 

 that Mr. Ludlow's last hen would be a very good match for the 

 London cock, and is infinitely nearer to it in type than to his 

 own earlier drawing. If we consider that no judge in his 

 senses, whichever he admired, would discard a bird for a little 

 more or less beak-wattle alone, there is in fact no real difference 

 left at all. 



"We have desired to show these facts plainly, because 

 certain parties still keep up a strife which is now mainly of 

 mere words. Of what avail is it, for instance, for London 

 fanciers to call the beak short, and the other school to insist 

 that it is " long," when both lay down the same precise length 

 of l-l inches, as both do 1 London has yielded something, and 

 Birmingham more ; and we have now as good a standard as we 

 can have, if the- desire be — as it is professed — to have a distinctly 

 typical pigeon. Por if the present moderated London style be 

 objected to as too near the Carrier, and the old Birmingham 

 type argued for as the " original " Dragoon, it can only be 

 replied that the evidence of fact is the other way. Old Moore 

 is conclusive evidence, as far as the " original " type goes, that 

 it was avowedly made by a cross, and that it was also usual by 

 crossing to give it a " tolerable degree of stoutness." And, on the 

 other hand, if the one London point of more size in wattle be a 

 Carrier point, every other point in the old Birmingham model — 



* All these statements and comparisons Trill be found fuEy worked out by 

 the author of this work, in the Live Stock Jowrnal of May 7, 14, and 21, 

 1875. 



