rfft 



Chap. VI. HISTORY OF THE PRINCIPAL PACES. 211 



Turbit, but the eminent fancier Mr. Brent believes that it was an inferior 

 Barb : C. Cretensis, with a short beak and a swelling on the upper mandible, 

 cannot be recognised : C. (falsely called) gutturosa, which from its rostrum, 

 breve, crassum, et tuberosum seems to me to come nearest to the Barb, Mr. 

 Brent believes to be a Carrier; and lastly, the C. Persica et Turcica, 

 Mr. Brent thinks, and I quite concur with him, was a short-beaked 

 Carrier with very little wattle. In 1687 the Barb was known in England, 

 and Willughby describes the beak as like that of the Turbit; but it is' 

 not credible that his Barb should have had a beak like that of our present 

 birds, for so accurate an observer could not have overlooked its great 

 breadth. 



^ English Carrier. —We may look in vain in Aldrovandi's work for any 

 bird resembling our prize Carriers ; the C. Persica et Turcica of this author 

 comes the nearest, but is said to have had a short thick beak; therefore it 

 must have approached in character a Barb, and have differed greatly from 

 our Carriers. In Willughby's time, in 1677, we can clearly recognise 

 the Carrier, but he adds, « the bill is not short, but of a moderate length," 

 a description which no one would apply to our present Carriers, so con- 

 spicuous for the extraordinary length of their beaks. The old names given 

 m Europe to the Carrier, and the several names now in use in India, indi- 

 cate that Carriers originally came from Persia; and Willughby's descrip- 

 tion would perfectly apply to the Bussorah Carrier as it now exists in 

 Madras In later times we can partially trace the progress of change 

 m our English Carriers: Moore in 1735 says "an inch and a half is 

 reckoned a long beak, though there are very good Carriers that are found 

 not to exceed an inch and a quarter." These birds must have resembled 



wlih JT / T* ^ Peri ° r t0 ' the CarrierS ' P re ™^ Ascribed, 

 ^» m 7J°T l m PerSia ' In England at the P rese ^ day "there 

 are as Mr. Eaton" states, " beaks that would measure (from edge of eye 



in length » ^ ^ ^ tWquarters > and some H even two inches 



From these historical details we see that nearly all the 

 chief domestic races existed before the year 1600. Some 

 remarkable only for colour appear to have been identical with 

 our p resen t breeds, some were nearly the same, some con- 

 siderably different, and some have since become extinct. Several 

 breeds such as Finnikins and Turners, the swallow-tailed pigeon 

 of Bechstem and the Carmelite, seem both to have originated 

 and to have disappeared within this same period. Any one now 

 Tl^^^f^^ avia ^ould certainly pick out 

 its ItZ 1! I 1 "* ^ ^ " e *** ** airier with 

 r t , f T ate ? eak and ^ reat wattles, the Barb with 

 its shoit broad beak and eye-wattles, the short-faced Tumbler 



43 ' Treatise on Pigeons/ 1852, p. 41. 



p 2 



