106 



PIGEONS. 



are selected from the elite of Cocks and Hens, Ducks and Geese, with China 

 Geese for the wind instruments and ophicleides, Thrushes and Larks for first 

 fiddles, and the Cow and the Pig for a pedal bass, — though the threshing-machine 

 in the distance best represents that. The audience is composed of yourself, your 

 wife, three or four boys and girls, the nursemaid with the little one, the woman 

 who is hanging out the week's washing in the orchard, and the gardener who is 

 come with a wheelbarrow to fetch some columbine guano for his melon-bed. This 

 fresh breeze is better than the smell of orange-peel ; that hedge of sweet-briar 

 is more fragrant, though less powerful, than a leaky gas-pipe. The word is given; 

 open sesame falls the trap ; the performers appear on their little platform, for all 

 the world like the strolling actors in front of a show at a fair, cooing, bowing, 

 advancing, retiring, in this their divertissement. They plunge into their air-bath 

 like truant schoolboys into a brook during the dog-days. The respectable 

 aldermanic Pouter swells his portly paunch to the utmost, claps his wings 

 smartly, and sails about in circles : it seems marvellous that he should be able to 

 fly at all ! But that darling little Cinnamon Tumbler, what a height it is ! And 

 now, seven times, I thought I counted, it went over ; but whether it was over, or 

 under, or roundabout, it would be difficult to say. Does your neck ache '? Pray 

 do not complain of it ; greater folks than us, when the Hawk and the Heron 

 were trying to over-reach each other, had to strain their eyes and necks a great 

 deal more to enjoy the sport, and had a chance too of scratching out the one, or 

 breaking the other, by riding into a bramble-bush or a pit — a danger we are not 

 likely to incur on this pleasant grass-plot. 



" Tumbling in the air, on the part of good unsophisticated Tumblers, is to 

 themselves an act of pleasure. They never do it unless they are in good health 

 and spirits : their best performances are after being let out from a short confine- 

 ment. The young Tumbler, as soon as it has gained sufficient strength of wing, 

 finds out by some chance that it can tumble; it is delighted at the discovery, and 

 goes on practising, till at last it executes the revolution with satisfaction to itself 

 — a feat the French have not performed of late years. Often and often the young 

 Tumbler may be seen trying to get over, but cannot nicely ; the same firmness of 

 muscle and decision of mind are required to execute that coup, which empower 

 the leading men at Astley's to throw their fortieth or fiftieth somerset backwards, 

 and enable the premiere danseuse at the opera to drop from the air, and stand for 

 a second or two in an impossible attitude on tiptoe. Beginners are incapable of 

 such excellence." 



At the present time there are in this country two very different classes of birds 

 known as Tumblers, although there is no strict line of demarcation between them, 

 as they verge into one another by insensible gradations. These are the ordinary 

 flying Tumbler, such as described by Moore and alluded to in the extract from 

 Dixon, and the short-faced or high-class Tumbler, which is perhaps the most 

 artificial of any of the numerous varieties of domesticated pigeons. 



These two races bear the same relation one to another that the ordinary field 



