FANCIER S’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
491 
to thirteen. A draught-horse can exert, only for a lew in- 
stants, an effort equal to about two-thirds of his proper 
weight. The man, therefore, is stronger than the horse. 
But according to Plateau, the smaller insects drag without 
difficulty, live, six, ten, twenty times their own weight. The 
cockchaffer draws fourteen times its own weight and more. 
Other coleoptera are also able to put themselves into 
equilibrium with a force of reaction reaching as high as 
forty-two times their own weight. Insects, therefore, when 
compared with the vertebrata which we employ as beasts of 
draught, have enormous muscular power. If a horse had 
the same relative strength as a donacia, the traction it could 
exercise would be equivalent to some sixty thousand pounds. 
M. Plateau has also adduced evidence of the fact that in the 
same group of insects, if you compare two insects, notably 
different in weight, the smaller and lighter will manifest the 
greater strength. 
Piq^ofj Depwr|viE|tr. 
SNELLS. 
This variety has been admired by but few persons this 
side of the Atlantic. It belongs to the Toy Class, and is, 
therefore, one of the easiest varieties to breed true. It was 
produced, in the first place, in that hotbed of toys, Germany, 
and ranks quite high in that country. And the only persons 
I have known to be great admirers of it have been Germans 
who brought their tastes for plumage with them to this part 
of the world. It is a contemporary of the Nun and Spot, and 
evidently descends from the same forefathers; in fact, all 
the Toys are but modifications of color upon the ordinary 
common Pigeon, and any one familiar with markings can, 
in a few years, produce Breasters, Magpies, Swallows, Nuns, 
Snells, &c., at will. A Magpie, for instance, is but a Nun 
which has transferred the black from the wings to the back 
and breast; and a Swallow or Snell can be transmogrified 
into a Snell or Swallow. 
Often in one's loft an oddly marked Pigeon (a Sport) will 
appear. If the marking is sufficiently curious, it can be 
fixed in most cases by judicious selection and pairing of the 
young of that Sport. There is such a tendency for any odd 
marking to become strong, that very little encouragement 
settles the question. Therefore nothing is easier in the hand- 
ling of Pigeons than to produce varieties of Toys. The 
Germans are continually doing this, and as continually 
allowing them to run out, for the reason that they do not 
become the fashion. I have seen, in my life, Nuns, Snells 
(with and without colored flights), Spots, Breasters, Moor- 
caps, Death’s Heads, &c., that were produced from the same 
strain of birds. How do you account for that? Why just 
in the same way you have seen Turbits bred from Owls, or 
vice versti, where perhaps the first half dozen young will be 
various colored Turbits, Caps, and all ; and the next half 
dozen, Owls, possibly, all solid, and without the sign of a 
cap. The ancient Snell was a white bird with colored head 
(scalp), flights, and tail; some were smooth heads, others 
capped, but when capped they were so like the Nun that it 
at last became the fashion to have them differ as much as 
possible, and the caps were prohibited, as were also the 
colored flights. Now, therefore, the standard markings are 
as follows : A white bird with colored scalp and tail. The 
line of color on the head begins at the corner of the beak, 
passes backward through the centre of the eye and around 
the head to the corner of beak opposite to starting-point; 
the upper half of the beak is dark, the lower half white. 
The division of color at the tail is a line drawn from the 
root of the outside tail-feathers on each side, crossing the 
vent. The eyes are pearl, the feet clean, some few are 
capped or point-headed, but the most are plain headed. One 
can, in this variety, have anything he wants ; for instance, 
by a cross with Swallows, a bird is produced with the colored 
head, flights, tail, and feathered feet ; by introducing a white 
bird, spots will be thrown in abundance, &c. 
The Snell is called by many the Helmet, from the fancied 
resemblance to the covering of the head used by the ancient 
knights. One of the best exercises for a studious fancier, or 
for any one who wishes to excel in the breeding of varieties, 
. is to spend a few years experimenting with the selection and 
fixing of color among Toys. It serves as an introduction to 
the study of the higher fancies, and it is absolutely needed 
j for an appreciation of the Almonds, &c. 
What amateur or tradesman of five or even ten years, 
yea, or twenty years, whose mission it has been to buy and 
sell birds or to raise a few, can select a pair of short-faced 
birds, even out of his own loft, and say they will breed 
Almonds ? The reason of this is because every one that 
buys a pair of Pigeons wants that pair to go down to hard 
work, laying eggs and nursing young ones, regardless of 
anything that may be learned, other than the price those 
young will bring. 
Everything a man learns from personal experience be- 
comes a key to something else he may come in contact with, 
and to nothing is this more applicable than in the pigeon 
fancy. The fact of knowing that a cross between the Swal- 
low and a Helmet will give the nucleus for a capped, feather- 
footed Snell, is, of itself, knowledge invaluable. That this 
can be done, any one can prove by trying ; and what are 
we here for but to observe, compare, and experiment? 
Dr. W. P. Morgan. 
Baltimore. 
COURIER PIGEONS. 
We are indebted to the London Journal of Horticulture 
for the following extracts from an interesting paper read 
by Mr. II. W. Aldridge, before the West Kent Natural His- 
tory Society. 
It is to the modern Belgians that we must award the honor 
of developing and applying to practical purposes that mar- 
vellous instinct by which the Pigeon finds his home from 
almost incredible distances. This instinct they have aptly 
termed “prientation,” the nearest reading of which is the 
power of finding the cardinal points. About the year 1820 
the discovery was first made that by coupling Pigeons pos- 
sessing distinct qualities, as high flying, strength of wing, 
and keenness of vision, a breed of birds might be produced 
combining all these qualities in one individual. These birds 
have been produced, and are now known in England as Ant- 
werps. It must not be supposed that the present perfection 
to which Pigeons have attained was arrived at without the 
