The Turbiteens. 
3i7 
daily, as the flying fancy there is as strong as the Tumbler-flying in this country, though the 
appearance of an Oriental flock is indescribable, the fanciers studying the composition of the 
colours and the view they present during the flight. A perfect ‘kit’ is composed in part of the 
varieties in question, then of self-coloured birds, the coloured-shouldered varieties, the white with 
dark tails, white with dark flights, Nuns, also solid Blacks and Reds with white tails, &c. &c., making 
a compact illuminated flock, above which, in every case, two or three Oriental Rollers (see page 193) 
soar, and occasionally descend through in the execution of their long and rapid performance. Being 
good fliers, they are, in consequence, good homers, displaying occasionally this property to a 
remarkable degree. Of the several illustrations in my knowledge I will relate one. During my early 
fancy days I bred a white-crested Owl, partially muffed (on account of Satinette blood), which 
fascinated the best fancier of the place, and he succeeded in getting it — by exchange — when the 
bird was about five months old. This fancier kept it a distance of about three miles, with clipped 
flights, and it bred well, till moulting time, when it managed, in his presence, to get on the house, 
and then to another, and finally disappeared, but the next morning the bird was home ; and soon 
after my friend also, begging to take it back. This he did, clipping the newly-grown feathers 
carefully ; but this stubborn bird has repeated the same journey twice after, at the moulting period. 
“ These birds when well flown thrive on anything, even on hemp-seed, as in their native land ; 
but as the general mode of keeping them in this country is confinement, I will endeavour to explain 
my mode of successful treatment, which I have experienced at considerable cost. When I first 
commenced to keep them in this country, being my first attempt at keeping pigeons in confinement, 
I began, as I thought logically, to follow as near as possible the treatment of their native country. 
First, I had erected in the yard a large wooden room, with a good space attached constructed of 
lattice-work, for my favourites to exercise in it in fine weather. This large pen I fitted with a stove, 
and by this method I kept the temperature comfortable, thinking they would feel at home. I have 
also supplied them with hoppers stocked with their favourite hemp-seed. The result was destruction ! 
Nearly every day one or two deaths occurred ; until shortly after, having to move to Birmingham, I 
contrived to bring with me two selected pairs, one of Satinettes and one of Brunettes. These birds 
I kept in an aviary well sheltered from the north winds, with a very small pen attached thereto. 
It was all paved with blue bricks. In this pen they commenced to breed under a really proper 
treatment. They were fed only on barley and a bit of bread occasionally, and from these two pairs 
of birds, and under this treatment, I succeeded, in time, in raising a good stock of nearly twenty 
pairs of perfect specimens of both colours, amongst them being some even superior to their 
imported parents. 
“ This is the method I now recommend, adding, that as a change to the barley and bread dari 
is the best. They also require plenty of lime. But if British fanciers can contrive to keep these 
birds at liberty and fly them, then they can treat them as any ordinary pigeons. It is only the too kind 
treatment they generally receive in this country which makes them delicate ; and in my experience 
I discovered that the active varieties of pigeons, when deprived of their liberty, should be kept 
rather low, and not fed upon flesh-increasing and blood-heating corn, as in such a case the result 
will be fatal. 
THE TURBITEENS. 
“ These are the present Oriental Turbits, which twenty-five years ago were marked as the 
present British Turbits. But at that time they had become so plentiful that an influential fancier 
starred the fashion, and advocated the face-markings, which he succeeded in establishing by the 
introduction of a local variety of Turbits with black tails and heads marked as the Nuns, to 
which I have previously alluded, commencing by crossing these birds with white Owls, to 
