24 



DOMESTIC PIGEONS. [Chap. I 



different languages have been published on pigeons, 

 and some of them are very important, as being of 

 considerable antiquity. I have associated with several 

 eminent fanciers, and have been permitted to join two 

 of the London Pigeon Clubs. The diversity of the 

 breeds is something astonishing. Compare the English 

 carrier and the short-faced tumbler, and see the 

 wonderful difference in their beaks, entailing corres- 

 ponding differences in their skulls. The carrier, more 

 especially the male bird, is also remarkable from the 

 wonderful development of the carunculated skin about 

 the head; and this is accompanied by greatly elongated 

 eyelids, very large external orifices to the nostrils, and 

 a wide gape of mouth. The short-faced tumbler has a 

 beak in outline almost like that of a finch; and the 

 common tumbler has the singular inherited habit of 

 fiying at a great height in a compact flock, and tumbling 

 in the air head over heels. The runt is a bird of great 

 size, with long massive beak and large feet; some of the 

 sub-breeds of runts have very long necks, others very 

 long wings and tails, others singularly short tails. The 

 barb is allied to the carrier, but, instead of a long beak 

 has a very short and broad one. The pouter has a 

 much elongated body, wings, and legs; and its 

 enormously developed crop, which it glories in inflating, 

 may well excite astonishment and even laughter. The 

 turbit has a short and conical beak, with a line of 

 reversed feathers down the breast; and it has the habit 

 of continually expanding slightly, the upper part of the 

 oesophagus. The Jacobin has the feathers so much 

 reversed along the back of the neck that they form a 

 hood; and it has, proportionally to its size, elongated 

 wing and tail feathers. The trumpeter and laugher, as 



