Comparative Value oe Properties. 
67 
The flights and tail, measured respectively from the ends of the wing-coverts at O to P and Q, 
should be as long as the bird can carry well ; that is so that the thighs and legs be long enough to 
carry the body so upright that the tip of the tail just touches the ground. Nothing can be more 
out of place than a bird with more tail than he can carry, almost as long as a Pouter. We have 
seen birds which measured eighteen inches from the point of the beak over the head to end of tail ; 
but we have never seen one yet more than seventeen inches that had thighs and legs to carry the 
tail well. Indeed, it is very obvious that a bird with a tail of exaggerated length cannot stand well, 
as the tail touching the ground must tilt the head down ; and though good length of flight and tail 
is a great recommendation, we have seen some birds which were really prevented by too much of 
it from standing so well as they would have done if they had less. The end of the flights, at P, 
should reach nearly, but not quite, as far as the end of the tail. 
The colour most prized in a Carrier is black, which sets off best the colour of the wattles ; but 
dun is little inferior. There are also whites, but the most marked advance of late years has been 
in blues, of which hardly any good ones were once to be seen, but which are now to be had of very 
fine quality. The beak is most prized if flesh-coloured, or flesh-coloured with the upper mandible 
stained with black on the top, which is quite as valuable. A black beak is not nearly so much 
esteemed ; still, it is so easily got rid of by crossing with duns, and the black-beaked birds are often 
so good in other points, that this is not to be regarded as very important, and a well-shaped black 
beak is infinitely preferable to a badly-shaped light one. 
Considering the whole, and arranging the various properties according to the difficulty of 
producing them, and their consequent value, we would rank then, thus: — 1. Beak-wattle. 2. Beak. 
3. Eye-wattle. 4. Neck. 5. Legs and thighs. 6. Narrowness of skull. All the other points are 
comparatively easy to produce. Colour should, however, come after length of tail and flights. 
But, as we have before said, it is the ivhole that is to be looked at, and nothing has done the pigeon- 
fancy so much harm as the widely-different ideas according to which birds are often judged ; a bird 
being unnoticed at one show and given first prize at another, even by the same judge, who will run 
after one point on one occasion, and another at another, till all but old breeders, who have an 
opinion of their own and know their own minds, are inclined to give up in despair of ever learning 
what a Carrier should be. The best Carrier-breeder we ever knew — Mr. Colley — was driven out of 
the fancy in disgust by the ignorance and changeableness of such men ; and while on this point, 
once for all, we would suggest that in asking for the services of a judge, he should be asked what 
varieties he considers himself a competent judge of, and not be requested to arbitrate on any more. 
This would tend to produce some little feeling of responsibility, and, we sincerely believe, remove 
much of the evil complained of. 
In the breeding of Carriers, the great thing is to know how to mate the birds together ; and 
this we will now endeavour to explain, illustrating our remarks where necessary by diagrams of 
heads drawn from living birds which at one time or another have been actually matched up in our 
possession ; so that the inexperienced reader may see, on the one hand, how a very faulty bird may 
be so matched as to produce valuable stock; and, on the other, may know the class of birds which 
rarely or never comes to any good, and may be, with a saving of time, discarded at once. 
First of all we may take the two heads in Fig. 32, A representing the cock and B the hen. 
Looking then at the cock, A, we see at once that he was a bird possessing a very large beak- 
wattle, coming very nearly too to the desired shape both above and below ; but what we have 
already described as “ down-faced.” It is, indeed, very seldom or never that a Carrier possessing 
such a quantity of beak-wattle as this bird had comes to the end of three years without becoming 
