CHAPTEE XXI. 



GERMAN TOYS. 



UXDEB the name of German Toys we may include a very large number of 

 different varieties, characterized almost entirely by mere variations in the 

 colour and disposition of the feathers. The majority of these birds closely 

 resemble the wild blue dove in form and in arrangement of plumage, though some 

 are characterized by feathered feet, others by turned crowns and tufts over the 

 upper mandible, and some combine all these peculiarities. 



In colour of plumage and markings they are infinite, and it is hopeless to 

 attempt to describe all the variations that occur. Many of them are accidental in 

 their occurrence, and a pair produced by crossing other breeds are designated 

 by a new and fanciful name, and attract notice for a time ; but as they often fail 

 to produce young resembling the parents, they disappear, to give place to new 

 varieties. Those breeds, however, that have been longest established, and in 

 which the process of the artificial selection of brood stock has been carried on for 

 a longer series of generations, breed fairly true to colour and markings, and thus 

 such varieties as Swallows, Bunts, Brunswicks, &c, have become firmly estab- 

 lished and are constantly to be seen at our shows. 



The satisfactory arrangement of these birds is not an easy or even a possible 

 task, as the varieties merge so readily into one another. By far the best descrip- 

 tions of them that have ever appeared in England were written by the late Mr. 

 B. P. Brent in the "Field" newspaper and in the defunct "Poultry Chronicle," 

 which was published in 1854-5, and to which we are indebted for much of our 

 information on the subject. 



We may first commence with a description of the spangled varieties. It is well 

 known to all pigeon fanciers that the black marks on the wing coverts, which by 

 their junction produce the upper of the two black bars, so characteristic of the 

 Bock dove, are apt to extend irregularly over the wing, and to produce that marking 

 known as chequered. When these marks are regularly dispersed they form a series 

 of spangles, the colours of which may be so varied as to give rise to a very pleasing 

 pattern. 



This spangling may be combined with any other colours in the plumage, and an 

 indefinite number of varieties may result from the union. Mr. Brent says : — 



" The Suabian Spangled pigeons, or, as they are called in Germany, Schwaben 

 Taubcn, are, I consider, the prettiest variety of Toys. They are doubtless the 



