We do not know any more delightful fancy for boys than Antwerps, as they are strong, hardy, fertile, and require no special trouble; good water and a little care in cleaning is all they ask; and they reward their owners by being always ready to convey to their home messages from any distance which they may have been trained to fly. The training is thus accomplished: the young birds, when they can fly round with the others, and dash about in the air in that vigorous style that characterises the breed, are taken a short distance from home and set free. They rise, and circling round and round, descry their home, and make straight for it.
Their next journey is longer, and so on; the distances are gradually increased, until the birds will return even for several hundred miles.
When these birds are used to convey messages, the paper must be so attached as not to impede their flight. The proper mode of doing this is to write upon a strip of thin soft paper, about half an inch broad by three or four inches long: this is rolled round the leg, and secured by a thread. An ordinary letter, tied to the bird in the manner that is often represented in engravings, would entirely prevent its flight.
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THE POUTER.
The breeds of pigeons that are most valued by fanciers are those that differ in the greatest degree from the blue rock doves and the common mongrel dove-house pigeons. Of these the Pouters, Carriers, and Tumblers are the most esteemed. The pouter is a remarkable bird, distinguished by the extraordinary power it possesses of inflating or blowing out the neck: it is also characterised by the extreme length of its legs, which should be feathered to the toes, and the length of the feathers of the wings and tail. Pouters are of various colours: some are purely white, but in general they are blue, or black, marked or pied with white upon the crop, and with white flight feathers in the wings; there are also red and yellow pied birds.
The properties for which a pouter is valued are usually stated as being five in number; viz. length of leg, length of feathers, slenderness of body, size of crop, and colour. Pouters possessing all these properties of the breed in a very perfect degree are rare, and consequently very valuable. Ten, or even twenty, pounds is no uncommon price for a pair of birds sufficiently good to win prizes in the compet.i.tions at the exhibitions of poultry and pigeons; but very fair specimens may be bought at the dealer"s for a few shillings per pair.
Pouters are not such good nurses as many other pigeons, often neglecting their young before they can feed themselves, when they die, unless fed by being crammed with beans at least twice a day. For this reason we would not recommend the young fancier to begin with this breed.
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THE CARRIER.
The Carrier of the present day is not, as its name might seem to imply, ever used to carry messages, but is a high-cla.s.s fancy variety, valued in proportion to the perfection of its properties. In a good carrier the beak is long, thick, and straight; the beak-wattle, or membrane at its base, well developed, and standing well up from the head. The eye-wattle, or membrane round the eye, should be large, flat, and circular; the skull narrow and long; the neck very slender and long; the plumage firm and glossy, the tail and flight feathers being long. The colour most valued in carriers is a brilliant jet black: many first-rate birds are what are called duns, a variety of brown. There are also white and blue carriers, and occasionally pied birds are seen. The blacks and duns are, however, the most perfect in properties; and they may be mated together without risk, as they will always produce either black or dun young birds, and not, as might be expected, a mixture of these colours, or a bird intermediate in colour between the two.
Carriers are very fair sitters and nurses, but they are subject to diseases of the eyes, and are not as well suited to young fanciers as some of the other breeds.
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THE DRAGON.
For grace, style, and beauty there are no pigeons superior to Dragons.
They are almost everything a young fancier could desire--good homing birds, able to do 50 or 100 miles with ease; active on the wing, close sitters, good nurses, fertile breeders, requiring no special care; full-sized birds, good in a pie, and not expensive in first cost. Their general form is somewhat like that of the carrier, but they are much more active, and far quicker in flight. Some of the best dragons are blue; others are white, red, yellow, and black. They differ from the carrier in the size of the eye and beak-wattle, and in the beak.
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THE TUMBLER.
The Tumblers are the very opposite of the breeds last described. Small birds, with rounded heads, short beaks, and pretty little red prancing feet, they are the very pets of the pigeon fancy. In colour the tumblers vary very much. There are blues, blacks, and other self colours; then some have white heads--these are termed bald heads; others have a white mark below the under bill--so they are termed beards; but the variety most valued is that termed the almond tumbler. In this breed every feather of the plumage is variegated with black, yellow, and white, the yellow forming the ground colour. These almond birds are reared by experienced fanciers with beaks so short that they are hardly able to bring up their own young, and others have to be employed for the purpose. Birds of this extreme character are not suited to young fanciers; but the ordinary flying tumblers, which can be bought at any dealer"s for a few shillings per pair, are most pleasant pets--good breeders, active and joyous on the wing, constantly turning somersaults in the air, good in a pie, and able to fly home, if trained, some thirty or forty miles with ease.
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THE BARB.
The Barb, or, as it used formerly to be called, the Barbary pigeon, from the country from where it was originally obtained, is regarded with great esteem by fanciers, and very good specimens cannot be obtained except at high prices. In size the barb is rather a small bird. The colours are usually black, dun, red, yellow, or white; blue barbs, strange to say, are not known. The eye of the barb is surrounded by a naked skin or wattle of a red colour; this should be circular in form, and the larger it is the more the bird is valued: the skull should be broad, and the beak short and stout. Barbs are good sitters, and bring up their young ones very well. They are also striking in appearance, the red eye-wattle contrasting well with the colours of the plumage.
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THE OWL.
Like the barbs, the best Owl pigeons also come from the north of Africa.
Formerly there was very common in this country an elegant, short-beaked bird of a beautiful blue or silvery colour, known as the owl: this was of medium size, and possessed rapid powers of flight. Beautiful as the breed was, it has almost entirely been superseded at the pigeon shows by a very _pet.i.te_, delicate, white breed, the first specimens of which were brought to this country from Tunis about a dozen years since. A very good specimen of this charming little variety is represented in our engraving. Since that true blue and black owls of the small size have also been introduced. The great drawback to this fairy-like little breed is its delicacy. The young fancier would do well to choose for his first favourites a hardier variety.
THE TURBIT.
The Turbit is a pigeon somewhat resembling the owl, but its head is flatter, and it has a turned crown of feathers at the back of the neck.
In colour it is peculiar. The wings, with the exception of the larger flight-feathers, are coloured, and the remainder of the body should be white. There are turbits of all varieties of colour, or, as they are termed, blue, black, red, yellow, and silver turbits.
THE FANTAIL.
There are a number of pigeons which are strikingly distinguished by remarkable peculiarities in the form of the plumage; such are the Fantail, the Trumpeter, and the Jacobin. The fantail is perhaps the best known of these. The number of feathers in the tail of an ordinary pigeon is fourteen, but in this breed it is greatly increased; in some specimens even to three times that number, and thirty feathers are not uncommon in good birds.
The carriage of the tail is also greatly changed; instead of being borne behind, like that of an ordinary pigeon, it is held aloft, like the expanded tail of a peac.o.c.k.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FANTAIL.]
The engraving represents one of the best white fantails, the tail full, carried well over the back, and the long swan-like neck thrown back so as to touch the tail. Fantails are good hardy birds, and as they can be bought at all prices, very well suit the young fancier. Moreover, they soon become very tame, and may be reared almost everywhere.
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THE TRUMPETER.
The Trumpeter is not as common a variety as the fan-tail, but is fully as remarkable. It derives its name from its peculiar voice, which is quite unlike the ordinary coo, coo, of a common pigeon; and it is also distinguished by the singular arrangement of the feathers on its head and feet: the latter are feathered to so great an extent that the bird appears to have four wings. Many of the larger quills on the feet of a good trumpeter will exceed four inches in length if unbroken. Trumpeters have a tuft over the beak and a turn of feathers at the back of the head. They require to be kept most scrupulously clean; otherwise the elegant appendages on the feet become clogged with dirt, and the birds lose all their attractiveness and beauty.
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THE JACOBIN.
No variety of pigeon excels the little Jacobin in its quaint prettiness.
The tiny little head is half concealed in a recurved cowl of feathers which runs down at the sides of the neck, and nearly meets in front.
The head, the flight feathers of the jacobin, and those of the tail, should be purely white, those of the rest of the plumage coloured. The most common colours are red or yellow; but there are also black jacks, as they are sometimes called for shortness, and also blues, and some that are entirely white. Jacks breed very freely, and we cannot recommend a prettier pigeon, or one better adapted to the juvenile fancier.
The foregoing breeds include all the best known varieties. It is true there are many others described in the works on pigeons, but none better fitted for the young and inexperienced fancier.
The breed known as Runts are characterised by their enormous size, sometimes weighing even as much as four pounds or even four and a half pounds a pair. But they do not fly well, and are more suited for pigeon pies than for a fancier"s loft.
There are also the breeds known as Nuns, Spots, and Helmets, which are white with more or less colour on the head, &c.; but for beauty of marking none surpa.s.s those blue breeds that possess the arrangement of colours in the plumage that characterises the original wild rock dove.
POULTRY.