330 
THE POWTER. 
in all conscience. But the first care of a Tumbler breeder should bo 
to procure well-shaped birds, with full breasts, short bodies, slender 
necks, pearly eyes, and beaks as straight as a goldfinch's. Colour is 
of comparatively little importance. 
THE POWTEB. 
This is a very favourite breed of Pigeons with the ' fancy,' and it 
may certainly claim the distinction of being the most curious, if not 
the most handsome, member of its family. *If,' says Dixon, 'as 
some writers hold, the inflation of the crop is the peculiar distinc- 
tion of the pigeon, Powters ought to stand at the head of the whole 
ColumhincB^ They are enabled to distend the crop to an enormous 
extent, and seem to take a pride and pleasure in doing so. Provin- 
cially they are called Croppers, which appears to be not a vulgarism, 
but an old name for them, as Willoughby says, ' They are so called 
because they can, and generally do, by attracting the air, blow up 
their crops to that strange bigness, that they exceed the bulk of the 
whole body beside ; and which, as they fly, and while they make that 
murmuring noise, swell their throats to a great bigness, and the 
bigger the better and more generous they are esteemed.' If a fancier 
wishes to form a judgement of the merits of one of these Pigeons, 
he puts his mouth to the bill of the bird, and blows away as 
if he were inflating a bladder through a pipe, and the crop 
swells and swells to its utmost capacity, till neck, and throat, and 
head too, are become lost in a vast protuberance, and the bird cuts a 
most ridiculous figure, standing nearly bolt upright, looking like a 
gentleman in a swallow-tailed coat and white pantaloons, whose shirt 
frill has taken to sprouting, and covered the upper part of him -svith 
a feathery efflorescence. And there he struts in a superbly ridi- 
culous manner. Dixon compares him to Atlas with the globe under 
his shirt front, and says he has seen gentlemen belonging to her 
Majesty's army, whose back- thrown head, superb erect carriage, taper 
vfaist, and weU-padded breast, brought them very much to the model 
of a gigantic cropper, and whose countenance betrayed no dissatisfac- 
tion with their own personal appearance ; and a style of beauty which 
contents a man may surely be allowed to please a bird. The above 
author describes the flight of the Cropper as stable and dignified in its 
way ; the inflated crop is not generally collapsed, but is seen to mount 
slowly through the air like a large permeant soap-bubble with body 
and wings attached to it. The bird is fond of clapping his wings loudly 
at first, starting to take a few lazy rounds in the air ; for he is too 
much of a fine gentleman to condescend to violent exertion. Other 
Pigeons will indulge in the same action in a less degree, but Croppers 
are the claqueurs par excellence ; and hence we believe the Smiters of 
Willoughby to be only a synonym for the present kind. To be perfect, 
