. Pigeons: their structure, varieties, habits, and management . n-crowns generally lose two points in competition—the headand neck being usually coarse and thick, and the English birds being of bettercarnage. The principal property in the Fantail is the extraordinary development of the 154 PIGEONS. quill feathers of the tail, and the mole in which the tail itself is carried. Thenormal number of feathers in the tail of all the varieties of pigeons is twelve;in the Fantail the number not unfrequently approaches forty, and even as manyas forty-two have been known. In order to constitute a good Fa
. Pigeons: their structure, varieties, habits, and management . n-crowns generally lose two points in competition—the headand neck being usually coarse and thick, and the English birds being of bettercarnage. The principal property in the Fantail is the extraordinary development of the 154 PIGEONS. quill feathers of the tail, and the mole in which the tail itself is carried. Thenormal number of feathers in the tail of all the varieties of pigeons is twelve;in the Fantail the number not unfrequently approaches forty, and even as manyas forty-two have been known. In order to constitute a good Fantail, however, the tail must be carried over theback, being brought well forward. If the tail is carried horizontally backwards,the beauty of the bird is entirely lost; on the other hand, it should not be thrownforward so far as to rest upon the body ; nor should the head be passed backwardsbetween the feathers of the tail. If the tail is well carried, the fuller the better ;but in a show-pen a well-carried tail of twenty-eight to thirty feathers is always. FRONT VIEW Of FANTAIL. more effective than a badly-carried one of thirty-eight or forty. The best show-birds will be found to have about twenty-eight feathers iu the tail. The tail of the Fantail is often compared with that of the peacock; but in factit differs from it most essentially. In the latter bird it is the tail-coverts or lowerback feathers that are raised and constitute the gaudy appendage of the bird; thetrue tail-quills, which are few in number, are short and stout, and merely serveas strong props to support the train, when raised. In the Fantail pigeon, how-ever, it is the quills of the tail which are erected. One curious result follows from the multiplication of the quills—namely, thetotal obliteration of the uropygium, or oil-gland of the tail, with the .contentsof which birds are generally supposed to oil their feathers. There is anothersingular effect of this abnormal multiplication of the feathers —
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubj, common=pigeon, taxonomy
