Breeders of the Almond. 
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for) that Mr. Chapman has kept and bred from the same strain of birds for nearly thirty years! 
Some will hardly credit this ; but it simply shows both the adaptability of the Almond for close 
breeding, and what can be done by careful and judicious management of one stock. Had this 
great breeder crossed occasionally, no doubt he would have produced better coloured birds than 
he usually bred (at least to our fancy), as we have ourselves frequently put birds of his strain into 
other hands to be so crossed, which then produced all that could be desired by any one in Mr. 
Chapman’s- strain. That, however, is not the present point; we mention his experience for the 
lesson it teaches, and because within our own knowledge the fact that he had so bred for such a 
length of time, has led several into a fancy for this variety, who otherwise would never have 
dreamed of it, owing to what they had heard or believed of the difficulties in breeding and rearing 
the Almond Tumbler. 
No pigeon being of a more artificial character than this, or more indebted to sedulous care and 
cultivation for many years, it is right to mention a few, to whom modern fanciers are much indebted, 
for having persevered with it during many years, and handed it down from the earlier breeders to 
our own day. In London, Messrs. Jayne, Esquilant, Hale, Hall, Ford, Gillett, and Merck, have been 
staunch supporters of the Almond for many years, and have, in their time, produced wonderful 
specimens. Singularly enough, few Scotch fanciers seem to have had any particular liking for this 
variety — Mr. Matthew Stuart, of Glasgow, Mr. Marquis, of the same city, and Mr. McKenzie, who 
resides in Ireland. We do not remember a single Irish fancier who ever kept Almonds for any 
length of time. We know of no locality, perhaps, where this pigeon has ever been more generally 
fancied than in the neighbourhood of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Several of the best breeders and judges 
of Almonds, who have visited the Newcastle shows, have had good cause to remember such visits, 
as regards their own special pets. We may also mention that there also have we found the best 
arrangement of Almonds we have ever met with, dividing them into the two classes which every 
breeder understands so well. At Newcastle, these are termed the ‘Gong-faced ” and the “shaped” 
birds ; the first being birds bred alone, or chiefly, for colour and feather; whereas, the really short- 
faced bird, as bred by what are called “ head-and-beak fanciers,” is called the “ shaped ” bird, on 
account of its peculiar form and carriage. Owing possibly to this greater exactness of definition, 
we have found less disagreement among these Newcastle fanciers as to what an Almond should be 
than in any other locality we ever visited, especially than in London ; and must say that in 
general we have never listened to ideas we could more fully unite in than those expressed in free 
conversation by our Northumberland friends. We were particularly struck by their general 
freedom from bias, not seeking so much for any one particular good point, but requiring a bird 
to be really good all over before they would admit that it was a good one. And there is no better 
test of a “good fancier” than that, as any one who is constantly buying and selling has good reason 
to know. Last, but not least, we must mention our old friend Mr. Fielding, of Rochdale, who has 
never been without more or less Almonds for nearly a quarter of a century, and knows what a 
bird should be as well as any one we ever knew. 
We will now proceed to give our views as to what an Almond Tumbler should be, and the 
comparative difficulty in producing each point. 
I.— Colour or Feather. 
The first and perhaps most valuable property, since from it is derived the very name of the 
bird, is the colour. As we have already remarked, there are so many different shades of colour that 
few understand the proper one ; and we have even known many people who have made so little 
observation of their own upon the colour of their birds, that they believed them always to 
