36 POULTRY CULTURE 



These latter are placed here because they really belong to 

 the fl3dng or performing pigeon class, and were so raised origi- 

 nally. But as most tumbler breeders live in cities and cannot 

 give their birds full liberty, the tumbling trait of character 

 has not been retained and the variety is now mostly bred for 

 fancy points. Tumblers are of three chief classes: a. Eng- 

 lish; b, German, and c, Oriental, and this variety was form- 

 erly named such because when flying they develop a habit of 

 turning over iDackward one or more times. Some of them 

 stiU do this, especially Orientals, which are sometimes com- 

 monly called "Rollers" because their backward turning often 

 results in their rolling backward from high up in the air to 

 the ground. The English tumblers are divided into the long 

 and short faced, although the tendency of modern judges is 

 to favor the long faced birds which tend toward the short 

 faced characters as to shape of head and beak. The long 

 faced birds are again divided into the clean leg and the muffed, 

 or feather legged or feather footed. And, as they are all 

 bred in several colors, and some of these colors have certain 

 markings, it will be seen that they form a very numerous 

 family, and often make a numerous collection at our pigeon 

 shows. 



The Germans divided their tumblers into three classes 

 according to the length of the beaks, thus: a, long beaked; b, 

 middle beaked, meaning middle length beak, and c, short 

 beaked. The long beaked were mostly flyers and were all 

 clean footed. The middle beaked were bred for both flying 

 and for fancy; and were bred with clean feet, also feather 

 footed. The short faced were all grouse footed, whereas the 

 English short faced were all clean footed. The English have 

 bred a modified Oriental roller which they call the Birming- 

 ham roller, and which is strictly a performing bird. 



Homers. These birds also occupy a double position and 

 some of them really belong to the fancy class, while others 

 are kept solely for their performance. The fancy kinds are 

 the a, English show homer, which is almost universally used 

 for show purposes, although some have been trained as fliers 

 and have given a good account of themselves. The same is 

 true of the next class, b, exhibition-working homer, of which 



