Chap. VI. THEIR REVERSION IN COLOUR. 199 



sometimes slightly piebald with white: of these birds no less 

 than six presented double wing-bars ; in two the bars were con- 

 spicuous and quite black ; in seven some white feathers appeared 

 on the croup ; and in two or three there was a trace of the 

 terminal bar to the tail, but in none were the outer tail-feathers 

 edged with white. 



I crossed black barbs (of two excellent strains) with purely- 

 bred, snow-white fantails. The mongrels were generally quite 

 black, with a few of the primary wing and tail-feathers white : 

 other were dark reddish-brown, and others snow-white : none had 

 a trace of wing-bars or of the white croup. I then paired 

 together two of these mongrels, namely, a brown and black bird, 

 and their offspring displayed wing-bars, faint, but of a darker 

 brown than the rest of body. In a second brood from the 

 same parents a brown bird was produced, with several white 

 feathers confined to the croup. 



I crossed a male dun dragon belonging to a family which had 

 been dun-coloured without wing-bars during several generations, 

 with a uniform red barb (bred from two black barbs) ; and the 

 offspring presented decided but faint traces of wing-bars. I 

 crossed a uniform red male runt with a white trumpeter ; and 

 the offspring had a slaty-blue tail, with a bar at the end, and 

 with the outer feathers edged with white. I also crossed a 

 female black and white chequered trumpeter (of a different strain 

 from the last) with a male almond-tumbler, neither of which 

 exhibited a trace of blue, or of the white croup, or of the bar 

 at end of tail : nor is it probable that the progenitors of these 

 two birds had for many generations exhibited any of these cha- 

 racters, for I have never even heard of a blue trumpeter in 

 this country, and my almond-tumbler was purely bred ; yet the 

 tail of this mongrel was bluish, with a broad black bar at the end, 

 and the croup was perfectly white. It may be observed in 

 several of these cases, that the tail first shows a tendency to 

 become by reversion blue ; and this fact of the persistency of 

 colour in the tail and tail-coverts 29 will surprise no one who has 

 attended to the crossing of pigeons. 



29 I could give numerous examples ; trumpeter, white fantail, and blue 

 two will suffice. A mongrel, whose four pouter/was white all over, except a very 

 grandparents were a white turbit, white few feathers about the head and on the 



