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Show 148 DOMESTIC PIGEONS. CIIAP. v. wards. Tho breast is broad and protuberant. Tho feet aro small. Tl10 carriage of tho bird is very different from that of other pigeons; in good birds the head touches the tail-feathers, which consequently often become crumpled. They habitually tremble much ; and their necks have an extraordinary, apparently convulsive, backward and forward movement. Good birds walk in a singular manner, as if their small feet were stiff. Owing to their largo tails, they fly badly on a windy day. Tho darkcoloured varieties arc generally larger than white Fantails. Although between tho best and common Fantails, now oxi. ting in England, thoro is a vast difference in tho posjtion and size of tho tail, in tho carriage of the head and neck, in the convulsive movements of tho neck, in tho manner of wnJldng, and in the breadth of tho breast, tho differences so graduate away, that it is impossible to make more than ono sub-race. Moore, however, an excellent old authority,14 says, that in 1735 there were two sorts of broad-tailed shakers ('i.e. fantails), "one having a neck much longer and more slender than the other ; " and I am informed by Mr. B. P. Brent that there is an existing German Fantail with a thicker and shorter beak. Sttb-mce JJ. Java li'untail.-Mr. Swinhoo sent mo from Amoy, in China, tbo skin of a Fantail belonging to a breed known to have been imported from Java. It was coloured in a peculiar manner, unlike any European Fantail, and, for a Fantail, had a remarkably short beak. Although a good bird of the kind, it had only 14 tail-feathers; but Mr. Swinboe has counted in other b:u:ds of this breed from 18 to 24 tail-feathers. From a rough ·ketch sent to me, it is evident that the tail is not so much expanded or so much upraised as in even second-rate European Fantails. The bird shakes its neck like OUI' Fantails. It had a well-developed oilgland. Fanta.ils were known in India, as we shall hereafter see, before the year 1600; and we may suspect that in the Java Fantail we see tbe breed in its earlier and less improved condition. HACE VI.-TuRBI'l' AND OwL. (Moven-Taube: Pigeons a cravate.) Feathers divergent along the front of the neck and breast; beak very short, vertically rather thick ; CEsophagus somewhat enlarged. Turbits and Owls differ from each other slightly in the shape of the head, in the former having a crest, and in tho curvature of the beak, but they may be hero conveniently grouped together. ·These pretty biJ.·ds, some of which are very small, can bo recognised at once by tho feathers inegularly diverging, like a frill, along the front of the neck, in the same manner, but in a less degl'oc, ns along tho back of tho neck in the Jacobin. This bird has the remarkable habit of continually and momentarily inflating the upper part of the cesophagus, which causes a movement in the frill. 14 See tho two excellent editions pub- . 1858, rntitled • A 'freatise on Fancy lisliccl by 1\'Tr. J. M. Eaton in 1 852 antl Pigeons.' CHAP. v. DESCRIPTION OF BREEDS. 149 When the msophagus of a dead bird was inflated, it was seen to bo larger than in other breads, and not so distinctly separated from the crop. Tho Pouter inflates both its true crop and cesophagus; tho Turbit inflates in a much less dogreo tho cesophagus alone. The beak of tho Turbit is very .short, being ·28 of an inch shorter than that of tho rock-pigeon, proportiOnally with the size of then· bodies; and in some owls brought by Mr. E. Vernon Harcomt from Tunis, it was even shorter. The beak is vertically thicker, and perhaps a little broader, in proportion to that of the rock-pigeon. |