THE SHORT-FACED TUMBLER. 



Ill 



variation of the species Tumbler has been pushed to its utmost possible limits. 

 Were the hmit exceeded, the bird could not be propagated, if it could exist at 

 all." 



The Beverend writer is, as usual, graphic, but not strictly accurate. The common 

 Tumbler is not, as he suggests, a bird au nature!. It, like all other varieties, has 

 been obtained by selection and careful breeding from variations occurring in a 

 domestic state ; and it is only by carrying out to its extreme the same principle 

 of action that produced the common Tumbler, that the short-faced breed was 

 produced. Again, the Tumbler is not a species, but merely a variety derived, like 

 all other pigeons, from the single species, the Columba Vvvia or wild Eock Dove. 



Leaving the disputes between the fanciers and the naturalists respecting the 

 comparative merits of the artificial and natural form to be settled by the dispu- 

 tants themselves, we pass on to the consideration of the short-faced birds. These 

 are of various colours. Formerly, some very accurately marked short-faced blue 

 and silver Tumblers were not uncommon, but at present they are very rarely seen. 

 The short-faced baldheads appear equally scarce ; they were formerly to be obtained 

 of all colours — blues, blacks, reds, yellows, &c, with all the characters of the 

 breed, viz. : the white feathers confined to the head and sharply separated from 

 the coloured feathers of the neck, or clean cut, in the language of the amateur) 

 a white or pearl eye, ten white flight-feathers in each wing, and white tail and 



SHOP.T-FACED BALD-HEAD TUMBLER. 



thighs. Attempts were made to breed Almond Tumblers with the bald or white 

 head, but the line of demarcation between the white and coloured plumage was 

 never well marked, and consequently the birds have gone out of repute. 



The Beards, or Bearded Tumblers, are very pretty birds; they also are of various 

 colours — blues, blacks, reds, yellows, &c. Beards should have white flights 

 (though the whole of the ten primaries are seldom or never white, usually six 

 or seven only), white tail, thighs, and pearl eyes, and under the beak should be a 



