68 
The Illustrated Book of Pigeons. 
down-faced, the very amount of wattle weighing it down gradually, especially when, as is almost 
always the case, there is a good heavy beak as well. The beak-wattle again, it will be seen, is far 
too much in comparison with the eye-wattle, which is small and irregular in shape. Now such 
birds are often discarded by breeders on account of the great want of eye-wattle, and are indeed 
valueless for exhibition ; but we have seen lots of them, falling into the hands of those who knew 
their value, produce such stock as fairly astounded the very persons who had cast them off. Such 
birds, in fact, are some of the most valuable a fancier can have ; for by showing so much wattle on 
the beak they prove that they are well bred, their fault being that they show too much on one 
place and too little on another. No fancier, then, should cast aside as of little value a bird which 
has a large amount of beak-wattle, merely because it is deficient in eye-wattle, even though that 
deficiency, as it usually does, makes them appear broad in the skull as well. This last is, however 
deceiving ; for it will often be found that if the eye-wattle were more developed, so as to come up 
to the top of the skull, the latter would really seem narrow ; but even if really wide-skulled, such 
birds are still valuable, if possessed of good massive beaks, and when mated to hens which possess 
those points the cock is deficient in. 
Such a bird as we have now described is usually a large one ; and this also is so much the 
better, since Carrier hens as a rule are too small, and large cocks are needed to throw strength 
and vigour into the progeny. And as large birds, which grow these large beak-wattles, are usually 
early-hatched ones, the bird is also likely to be a good length in flights and tail ; which, if it is 
added to a long neck and good upstanding legs, is an additional advantage. It is, in fact, rarely 
that a good large-framed Carrier is not long in flights and tail, unless hatched late in the season 
(in which case, indeed, he is unlikely to be large at all). Late-hatched birds do not moult their 
quill-feathers the same season, which the early-hatched ones do ; and even in after life, however 
well cared for, never get the same length of feather as early-hatched birds. Hence, it will readily 
be seen, though few amateurs ever think of it, that to breed together two birds both hatched late 
in the season is almost of necessity to breed for short flights and tail ; so that it is desirable 
to avoid this when possible, though length of feather is so much easier got than head and beak 
properties, that we would not wish an inferior bird to be used solely on this account. Conversely, 
