HEAD OF BARB. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE BARB. 



' I ^ H K Barb, or Barbary pigeon, is one of those varieties whose history can be 

 -*- traced back for a considerable period: it was certainly well known in England 

 during the sixteenth century, for Shakspeare, in As You Like It, which was 

 entered at Stationers' Hall in 1600, makes Rosalind, when disguised as a youth, 

 say, "I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon oyer his hen," — 

 Act iv. Scene 1. Our intercourse with the north of Africa was at that period not 

 unfrequent, and many of the domestic animals of the district had been imported 

 into this country. Shakspeare frequently alludes to Barbary horses ; and in the 

 second part of King Henry TV., Act. ii. Scene 4, makes Falstaff say, " He's no 



swaggerer, hostess ; he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her 



feathers turn back with any show of resistance." This allusion was most 

 probably to a Frizzled fowl. 



Willughby, in his " Ornithology," published in 1678 by the celebrated naturalist 

 John Ray, describes the Barbary pigeons. He says of them, " A broad circle of 

 naked tuberous white flesh compasses the eyes, as in the Carrier ; the irides of the 

 eyes are white. My worthy friend Mr. Phillip Skippon, in a letter to me 

 concerning tame pigeons, writes that the eyes of this kind are red. Perchance 

 the colour may vary in several birds." 



The engraving in Willughby's "Ornithology," which is given as that of a Barb, 

 represents an ordinary-looking pigeon, with a small eye-wattle and slight turn- 

 crown at the back of the head. 



Moore, in his " Columbarium," calls this variety Columba Numidica, the Barb, 

 or Barbary pigeon, and describes it as follows : — 



" This pigeon is in size somewhat larger than a Jacobine ; it is called a Barb 

 for shortness, instead of the Barbary pigeon, being originally brought from that 



