616 FANCIERS’ 
JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 


























- Pigeon Deetreerg 

REASONING DOVES. 
Can’t doves reason, after their fashion, as well as boys 
and girls? Hon. oun C. Park, of Boston, tells an amaidont 
which seems to prove it. 
‘(A friend had given me six pairs of beautiful Calcutta 
doves, all pure white. I was anxious to increase my flock, 
and placing them in a commodious dove-cote, with a row of 
pigeon-holes about four feet from the floor, awaited the re- 
sult. Soon two of the pairs deposited eggs, and hatched 
each two squabs in nests about five holes apart. One after- 
noon I found that a little one had fallen out and was killed. 
The next morning, in looking from my chamber window, I 
observed doves carrying up in their beaks materials for a 
new nest; but seeing the unusual size of the twigs selected, 
I went out to see how things progressed. To my astonish- 
ment I found that the doves which had their two squabs 
both safe in their nest had erected, during the morning 
hours, a barrier of twigs, about an inch and a half high, 
along the front of their pigeon-hole, thus guarding against 
the catastrophe which had happened to their neighbors. 
Was not this the result of a process of reasoning? Would 
all reasoning human beings be as wise? ”’ 
[If the Hon. John C. Park had been a fancier he would 
never have penned the above. In the first pluce he would 
not have called pigeons doves. In the second place he 
would have known that the pigeons were building a new nest, 
even if it did not appear to be in a proper place, and prob- 
ably before his article was in type his pigeons had laid two 
eggs on what he supposed to be a platform. We have kept 
fancy pigeons for many years, but. never yet saw anything 
approaching reason, or even attachment to anything except 
hempseed.—Ep. | 

THE TURBIT. 
Tue solid Turbits are of one uniform color throughout, 
excepting the tail wing bars, and hackle or neck feathers, 
of the blues and silvers. They have a frill and shell-crest 
precisely as in shouldered birds, but are somewhat larger, 
and not so fine in head, beak, and gullet; except the solid 
white, which is equally as good as the shouldered birds in the 
points mentioned. They have a reddish-orange eye as in 
Owls. The beak in the blue is dark as in common blue 
pigeons. In the black they are very light at the base but 
dark atthe point. In all the others the beak is light in color. 
I have never seen or heard of plain blues and silvers with- 
out the wing-bars, and I doubt very much whether they 
have yet been produced. Within the past few years I have 
bred them of the following colorings: blues and silvers 
with black wing-bar, well defined bar across the tail, and 
dark neck feathers. Also, plain blacks, reds, yellows, whites, 
and dun. I have not yet been able to breed blues to 
my satisfaction (although there are fair birds of this 
color at the present time in this city), but I am in 
hopes of accomplishing it the present season. In my 
attempts to breed these birds, I have at the present time one 
pair mated that are very poor in frill and color; showing 
brown on the wing bar. They have at this writing 
| their second pair of young in the nest; one of which is a yel- 
low, and the other a clear silver; in the first nest one is 
a clear red, the other a dark silver. I make this statement to 
show the importance of getting birds from a well known 
strain, and, also, to show how they will sport in color when 
not well bred, although in this case any of the young are worth 
more than their parents. 
To further illustrate the importance of buying birds of a 
good strain, I will here state that, in 1871, I bought a pair 
of solid blacks from a dealer who is noted for pulling 
foul feathers (our friend Morgan’s article on the Nuns, 
had not then been published in the Jour nal), a habit which 
he had put in practice in the present case ; for in a few weeks 
the under feathers in the tail of the feniale came out a pure 
white; but, as the sequel will show, they proved a valuable 
pair of birds tome. The first season they bred two pairs of 
AN 
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Le =e 


black young ones; the second season (1872) they bred blacks, 
blues, yellows, reds, and duns. The next season (1873) they 
produced only two or three young (one of which was the 
brightest solid yellow I ever owned, and at this time, 1874, 
is mated to one of the old yellow stock, and is producing 
fine young, true to color). While on this subject, I will 
state that in 1872 I had one pair of solid white birds, 
that produced in rapid succession, five pairs of pure 
white young, all of which they raised. In the following 
season, as with the blacks, they produced only two nests, 
only one bird of which they raised. In the first nest was 
one white one, and one with a large patch of drab on one 
side. In the next nest, one was pure white as hefore, the 
other was a pure drab or lightdun. This was unaccountable 
to me, as I had every reason to believe that the birds I had 
were pure bred in every respect; but, in both cases, it will be 
noticed, that variation in color was produced during or 
immediately after excessive breeding. The- first sign of 
deterioration in solid Turbits, is usually seen in the tail— 
especially with the blues and silvers—which will occasion- 

