208 DOMESTIC PIGEONS : Chap. VI. 



Almond-tumbler, so that the two young birds produced from 

 this cross included the bleed of five varieties, none of which 

 had a trace of blue or of wing and tail-bars : one of the two 

 young birds was brownish-black, with black wing-bars ; the 

 other was reddish-dun, with reddish wing-bars, paler than 

 the rest of the body, with the croup pale blue, the tail bluish 

 with a trace of the terminal bar. 



Mr. Eaton' 27 matched two Short-faced Tumblers, namely, a 

 splash cock and kite hen (neither of which are blue or barred), 

 and from the first nest he got a perfect blue bird, and from the 

 second a silver or pale blue bird, both of which, in accordance 

 with all analogy, no doubt presented the usual characteristic 

 marks. 



I crossed two male black Barbs with two female red Spots. 

 These latter have the whole body and wings white, with a 

 spot on the forehead, the tail and tail-coverts red ; the race 

 existed at least as long ago as 1676, and now breeds perfectly 

 true, as was known to be the case in the year 1735. 28 Barbs 

 are uniformly-coloured birds, with rarely even a trace of bars 

 on the wing or tail ; they are known to breed very true. The 

 mongrels thus raised were black or nearly black, or dark or 

 pale brown, sometimes .-lightly piebald with white : of these 

 birds no less than six presented double wing-bars ; in two 

 the bars were conspicuous 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 : others 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. 



27 'Treatise ou Pigeons,' 1858, p. 28 J. Moore's ' Columbarium,' 1735: 



1-15. in J. M. Eaton's edition, 1852, p. 71. 



