Celebrated Blue Dragoons. 
2 1 7 
compete as a show Dragoon. We do not advocate a bird with a lot of either eye or beak-wattle ; 
and we consider and maintain that it is as difficult to obtain a perfectly-shaped wattle on a Dragoon 
as on a Carrier. Ihere are, indeed, very few birds comparatively which we can regard as perfect, or 
nearly so. The first pair of really good Blues we ever saw were shown by Mr. Jones Percival at 
Birmingham, >nd so good were they as to make all the others insignificant. These passed into 
the possession of Mr. F. Crossley, and gained more honours in competition than any pair of birds, 
so far as we know, ever shown. The following season came a pair from Mr. South, which took 
first honours at the same great show as Mr. Percival’s had done the preceding year ; and so good 
were they that, as they never were shown together in our presence, we never could make up our 
minds which were the best. We do remember, however, that they were so marvellously well 
matched as to give rise to a strong suspicion that both were cocks, but this was proved wrong by 
the birds breeding ; and singularly enough they then produced more really fine specimens than we 
ever knew bred by one pair of Dragoons. Both these pairs were the true type, as here described, 
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