50 



PIGEONS. 



therefore as soon as they have fed off their soft meat it is proper to put their 

 young ones under a pair of small Runts, Dragoons, or Poutiug Horsemen, which 

 may be kept as nurses for the purpose. 



" There are all sorts of feathers in this pigeon, and the Dutch in breeding it take 

 a very great care ; for as soon as they have fed off their soft meat, they put their 

 young ones under others to nurse, and then separate their old ones, placing them 

 in different coops, and feeding them high with hemp or rape-seed for a month, 

 then turning them together ; and by being very hearty and salicious, they breed 

 pigeons with very good properties ; from whence we may observe, that would 

 mankind be alike abstemious, their progeny might be more complete both in body 

 and mind. 



"These are the pigeons that are most apt to gorge, if not kept constantly 

 supplied with meat and water." 



" The Uplopee. — The Uploper rs a pigeon bred originally in Holland; its make 

 and shape agrees in every respect with the English Pouter, only it is smaller in 

 every property. Its crop is very round, in which it generally buries its bill ; its 

 legs are very small and slender, and its toes are short and close together, on which 

 it treads so nicely, that when moving, you may put anything under the- ball of its 

 loot ; it is close-thighed, plays very upright, and when it approaches the hen, 

 generally leaps to her with its tail spread, which is the reason the name is given to 

 it, from the Dutch word Uplopen, which signifies to leap up. These pigeons are 

 generally all blue, white, or black, though I will not assert that there are no 

 pieds of the species: There a-re but few of them in England, and I have been 

 informed that in Holland they have asked five-and-twenty guineas for a single pair 

 of them." 



" The Pabisian Potjtee.— This pigeon was originally bred at Paris, and from 

 thence brought to Brussels, whence it was transmitted to us ; it has all the nature 

 of a Pouter, but is generally long-cropped and not very large ; it is- short-bodied, 

 short-legged, and thick in the girt. What is chiefly admired in this bird is its 

 feather, which is indeed very beautiful r and peculiar only to- itself, resembling a fine 

 piece of Irish stitch, being chequered with various colours in every feather, except 

 the flight, which is white ; the more red it has mixed with the other colours, the 

 more valuable it is : some are gravel-eyed, and soma bull-eyed,- but it. is equally 

 indifferent which eye it has." 



Of the origin of these three varieties of Croppers, no historical details are 

 known. All ordinary breeds of pigeons have- the power of distending the upper 

 part of the gullet with air to some slight extent, and so enlarging the neck. 

 Even the wild Rock Dove possesses this faculty ; and a reference to the figure at 

 page &, illustrating the structure of its digestive organs, will show that the gullet, 

 b c, is unusually large, as compared with the size of that organ in fowls and other 

 allied birds. 



By careful selection, and breeding from birds that developed this peculiar pro- 

 perty to the greatest extent, the breed of Croppers must have been obtained. And 



