CHAP. IV.]

TEMMINCK'S NOTIONS.

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own experience or observations confirm this remark. It is just as distinct, and no more so, as the other domestic breeds. Whatever right they may be adjudged to have to specific honours, the Turbit also has, but no greater.

Temminck complains of the difficulties which amateurs experience in making them propagate with other races supposed to be derived from the Biset; but two brown-shouldered hen Turbits in my possession have paired and bred, one with an Owl (Pigeon) the other with a Rock Dove, or Biset itself. In the former case, the young mostly resembled one the male and the other the female parent, with a few foul feathers on each; in the second case the young resembled the male parent, or Rock Dove, with scarcely a trace of the maternal plumage. Instances sometimes occur of sterile males among Turbits; a fact which may have led Temminck to suppose that these birds entertain some general aversion to the females of other breeds; but like cases of infecundity occur with China Ganders and even with Turkey Cocks.

Buffon says of the Pigeon Cravate, or Turbit, that it is scarcely larger than a Turtle, and that by pairing them, hybrids are produced, a statement which is quoted by Temminck. But in one very important point it differs from the Turtle; its time of incubation is the same as that of other domestic Pigeons, whereas the Collared Turtle at least hatches in a much shorter period.

According to the Treatise, "This Pigeon is called by the Dutch Cort-beke, or Short-bill, on account of the shortness of its beak; but how it came by the

name of Turbit I cannot take upon me to determine.

"It is a small Pigeon, something larger than the Owl; its beak is short like that of a Partridge; and the shorter it is the more it is valued; it should have a round button head, with a gullet; and the feathers on the breast (like that of the Owl) open, and reflect both ways, standing out almost like a fringe, or the frill of a shirt; and the bird is valued in proportion to the goodness of the frill or purle.

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In regard to their feather, the tail and back of the wings ought to be of one entire colour, as blue, black, dun, &c., the red and yellow ones excepted, whose tails should be white; and those that are blue should have black bars cross the wings; the flight feathers, and all the rest of the body should be white, and are called by the fanciers according to the colour they are of, as black-shouldered, yellow-shouldered, blue-shouldered Turbits, &c. They are a very pretty light Pigeon; and if used to fly when young, some of them make very good flyers.

"There are some Turbits all white, black and blue, which by a mistake are often called and taken for Owls," pp. 127-8.

And well they may be distinction of colour is all that can be perceived by common eyes. It is said that in Owls, the feathers round the neck ought to have a certain, slight, hardly describable twist: but wishing only to describe the really typical domestic forms, I hesitate to give the Owls any paragraph to themselves.

The iris in the brown-shouldered Turbit is dark hazel surrounding a large black pupil. The attention

CHAP. IV.] RAPID GROWTH OF YOUNG COLUMBIDE.

109

of naturalists may be directed to the similarity in the shape and air of the head in the Fantail, the Jacobin, and the Turbit, all races with striking peculiarities of feather. Turbits, if the faulty members of the family are rejected, are a satisfactorily prolific race.

The results obtained from a bird of this breed, will serve as a special instance of the rapid rate of increase of the young among the Columbida in general.

On the 27th of June, 1849, a male blue Owl that had mated with a female black-headed Nun, hatched one chick. The second egg, being clear or unfertilised, had been taken away from them some days previously. The egg producing this chick had been cracked three or four days before hatching, by a blow from the Owl's wing, given in anger at my examining it. The chick had grown much in the few hours intervening between its exclusion and the time of my seeing it. It was blind, and covered with long yellow, cottony down. In the afternoon of the 1st of July, it first opened its eyes to the light. Now the average weight of a domestic Pigeon's egg is about half an ounce; rather more for the large breeds, as Runts and Powters, and rather less for the smaller ones, such as the parents of our present chick. A Collared Turtle's egg weighs about a quarter of an ounce. But on the 3rd of July, this little creature, that on the 27th of June would hardly balance a half ounce weight, now weighed four ounces and a half, and its feathers, or rather its feather-cases, were pricking through its skin like a Hedgehog's spines. On the 4th it weighed 5 oz. 6 dr.; of course part of that weight was made up of the contents of the crop, which now contained a portion of hard food. July 6th, weight 8 oz.; feather-cases very long and much started, the

feathers themselves much protruding. July 9th, weight 10 oz.; only one parent attending to it. July 11th, weight 10 oz. July 14th, 11 oz. July 16th, 11 oz. July 18th, 11 oz.; the growth seemed now principally directed to the quill feathers, which accounts for its less rapid increase in weight. July 26th, the weight of the squeaker was 12 oz.; it was capable of flying and feeding itself, and only wanted strength and a little corroborative time, to be a perfect independent adult bird. At the same date of July 26th, the weight of the Owl, its male parent, was only 111⁄2 oz.; so that, in about a month, its own young one had exceeded it in weight. It takes many quadrupeds several years to attain the bulk of their parents; the chick of a common hen, at the end of a month from hatching, is very far indeed from equalling its mother in weight; but in the case of Pigeons, we have the enormous increment of growth from half an ounce to twelve ounces and a quarter, within that short period. The wonder is accounted for by our knowledge that, for the first fortnight, the chick has the assistance of two digestions in addition to its own; and that during the month it has to undergo little or no exertion of body or brain, but merely to receive a liberal supply of ready-prepared nutriment.

In another case, a Powter mated to a Nun produced one chick on the 16th of July, 1849. Its weight when hatched was half an ounce. Its bill was not pink, but tinged under the cuticle with a dark pigment; this character it derived from its Nun parent. But on the 15th, another pair of Pigeons, both Powters, had hatched a couple of chicks, one perhaps during the previous night, the other not till the middle of the day; their joint weight was then 1 oz. On the 16th, it had reach

CHAP. IV.]

BARBS-IMPROVE WITH AGE.

111

ed to 1 oz. only: and on the 19th, the smallest chick died, seemingly of starvation, as the old ones appear to have neglected it: the other chick had been transferred on the 18th to the Nun and Powter which had hatched on the 16th. Under their care, on the 20th the eyes of both squabs were open, and a little hard food was in their crops. On the 26th, their joint weight was 15 oz.; their crops were half filled with hard food, the webs of the feathers were protruding through many of the feather-cases, and the birds advanced as rapidly towards maturity as in the former instance.

BARBS are elegant little birds; very quiet and demure in their appearance, and yet full of fun and activity. Their chief characteristic is a naked, wrinkled, red skin round the eye, which the books say, most likely with truth, increases till they are four years old. But Pigeons improve much, both in appearance and in constitutional powers, with age. They live, I believe, and continue fertile, much longer than is generally imagined. Many young pairs of Pigeons are condemned because their owners do not exercise sufficient patience with them; and from their peculiar habit of settling in a fixed home, to which they will return, if they can, at all hazards, it is not easy to possess a good stock of birds without passing through this preliminary discipline of patient pigeon-feeding. The best, though not the only colour for Barbs, is an entire black. In such, the prismatic shadings of the neck are particularly beautiful. The rate at which they will breed is not to be complained of: and as to their crossings, the rule of the paramount influence of the male seems to obtain. A little hen Barb that had lost her mate, was soon taken under the protection of a blue Antwerp Carrier. The