THE BARB. 137 



the only kinds I hare got from white and yellow, or white and dun, have been 

 bad-coloured black birds, with dark india-rubber-looking beaks. 



'•' TVhen recommending the above modes of breeding for colour, it must not be 

 expected that the results will always be the same. Indeed, as a notable instance 

 of the uncertainty of producing any given colour by matching together differently 

 coloured parents, I may state that last season, from a red cock and dun hen, 

 I produced and reared every known colour in Barbs, viz., two whites, two blacks, 

 one red, two yellows, and one dun. The cock was from a very pure strain of 

 reds, which I have had for several years, and the hen from a yellow and dun. 

 From a splashed cock and yellow hen I have now a young bird as nearly blue 

 as possible. To sum up these remarks on breeding for colour, I may say 

 that, for breeding purposes at any rate, a good Barb, like a good horse, ' is never 

 of a bad colour,' and, with the exception of whites, I should have no hesitation 

 in putting together a pair of birds of any two colours provided they were a suitable 

 match in other properties." 



These valuable remarks of Mr. P. Jones so fully exhaust the subject, that there 

 remains but little to be added. 



The engraving of the Barb in "Willughby's "Ornithology" represents a bird with 

 a turn-crown at the back of the head ; many Barbs at the present time still 

 retain this peculiarity of plumage, but as a general rule they are much inferior to 

 the plain-headed birds. Nevertheless, we have seen some very good turned-crown 

 Barbs ; but the present fashion is decidedly opposed to chignons — at least in this 

 variety of dove. 



The old authors describe a breed known as the Mahomet, or Mawmet, but of 

 which little is known beyond the fact that it closely resembled the Barb, except 

 in colour. 



The writers themselves did not agree as to its character. Willughby is the first 

 to allude to it, and he merely states, " Mawmets, called as I take it from Mahomet, 

 perchanGe because brought out of Turkey, are notable for their great black eyes, 

 else like the Barbaries." 



Moore writes : — " This pigeon is no more in reality than a white Barb, which 

 makes the red tuberous flesh around the eyes look very beautiful." He then 

 proceeds to give the legend that it was called the Mahomet because the author of 

 the Alkoran had taught a tame bird of this breed to feed out of his ear. 



The writer of "The Treatise" of 1765, gives us on this occasion, a paragraph 

 of original matter, and states :— 



"I think Mr. Moore has extremely well accounted for its being so called; 

 but it is the opinion of many fanciers that the bird called a Mahomet is nearly a 

 cream-coloured, with bars across the wings as black as ebony, the feathers very 

 particular, being of two colours ; the upper part or surface of them appearing of a 

 cream, and underneath a kind of sooty colour, nearly approaching to black ; as are 

 likewise the flue-feathers, and even the skin, which I never observed in any other 

 pigeon but these ; its size much like that of a Turbit, with a fine gullet, and in 



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