146 PIGEONS. 



" The Jacobine, or as it is vulgarly called for shortness, the Jack, is, if true, 

 the smallest of all pigeons, and the smaller still the better. It has a range of 

 feathers inverted quite over the hinder part of the head, and reaching down on 

 each side of the neck to the shoulders of the wings, which forms a kind of a 

 fryer's hood ; from hence this pigeon has its name Jacobine, because the fathers 

 of that order all wear hoods to cover their bald crowns ; hence the upper part of 

 this range of feathers is called the hood, and the more compact these feathers are, 

 and the closer to the head, so much the more this bird is esteemed. The lower 

 part of this range of feathers is called by us the chain, but the Dutch call it the 

 cravat ; the feathers of this chain ought to be long and close, so that if you strain 

 the neck a little, by taking hold of the bill, the two sides will lap over each other 

 in some of the best ; but there are but very few now to be found in England 

 compleat. 



" The Jacobine ought to have a very short bill, the shorter the better, and a 

 clean pearle eye. As for the feather, there are reds, yellows, blues, blacks, and 

 mottles; but be the feather what it will, they ought to have a clean white head, 

 white flight, and white tail. Of these pigeons some are feather-legged and footed, 

 others are not, and both sorts are equally esteemed, according to the various incli- 

 nation of different fanciers." 



Under the title of the Capuchine, Moore alludes to a breed which is evidently 

 nothing more than an inferior or cross-bred Jacobine. He says : — 



" This pigeon is in shape and make very like the Jacobine, and has its 

 name, like the former, from another set of hooded ecclesiastics. It is some- 

 thing larger in body than the Jack, its beak longer ; it has a tolerable hood, but 

 no chain ; it is in feather and other properties the same. Some will assert it to 

 be a distinct species, but I am more inclinable to imagine it to be only a bastard 

 breed from a Jacobine and another pigeon ; however, thus far I am sure, that a 

 Jack and another will breed a bird so like it, as will puzzle the authors of this 

 assertion to distinguish it from what they call their separate species." 



Moore also describes, under the name of the Huff, a larger and coarser breed, 

 of which he states : — 



" This pigeon is larger than the true original Jacobine, though in shape and 

 make much the same. It has a longer beak, the irides of the eyes in some are 

 of a pearl colour, in others of a gravel colour; the feathers of its hood and 

 chain are much longer, though the chain does not come down so low to the 

 shoulders of the wings, neither are they near so compact and close as the others, 

 but are apt to blow about with every blast of wind, fall more backward off the 

 head, and lie in a rough confused manner, whence the pigeon has its name. The 

 strain of Jacobhi6s has been much vitiated by matching them to this pigeon, in 

 order to improve their chain by the length of the Ruff's feathers, but instead of 

 this, the Jack is bred larger, longer beaked, looser in its hood and chain, and in 

 short, worsted in all its original properties," 



