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Updated: May 4, 2025
"Yes, you oughta saw it," chimed in another. "Cert'n'y was no little-small flame. I could see Sally movin' araoun' in the flare. Had that tramp-boy taggin' abaout with her. I declare, if he di'n' look like a gipsy!" The neighbourly throng was at this moment augmented by the appearance of two ladies who fluttered out on the porch of a rose-trellised cottage, like small, proud pouter pigeons.
He was a dignified, ruddy little gentleman, clad in a well turned cutaway that fell from his highly convex middle like the wings of a pouter pigeon. "My lord and gentlemen of the jury," he began in a voice of insinuating modesty and sweetness, "in this room during the past four days we have witnessed the unfolding of an extraordinary drama.
Then the amount of naked skin round the eyes, and at the base of the beak, may vary enormously; so may the length of the eyelids, the shape of the nostrils, and the length of the neck. I have already noticed the habit of blowing out the gullet, so remarkable in the Pouter, and comparatively so in the others.
There can hardly be a doubt that this is the cause of the male pouter pigeon having a somewhat larger crop, and of the male carrier pigeon having somewhat larger wattles, than their respective females; for fanciers have not selected one sex more than the other, and have had no wish that these characters should be more strongly displayed in the male than in the female, yet this is the case with both breeds.
Then the amount of naked skin round the eyes, and at the base of the beak, may vary enormously; so may the length of the eyelids, the shape of the nostrils, and the length of the neck. I have already noticed the habit of blowing out the gullet, so remarkable in the Pouter, and comparatively so in the others.
Did He ordain that the crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary, in order that the fancier might make his grotesque pouter and fantail breeds? Did He cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary, in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, with jaws fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport?
There is far greater difference between a pouter and a carrier pigeon, than between a Caucasian and a Mongolian. To call the former varieties of the same species, and the latter distinct species, is altogether arbitrary. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the arbitrary classifications of naturalists, it remains true that there are what Professor Dana calls "units" of the organic world.
It is called the Pouter because it is in the habit of causing its gullet to swell up by inflating it with air. I should tell you that all pigeons have a tendency to do this at times, but in the Pouter it is carried to an enormous extent.
The frequent presence of fourteen or even sixteen tail-feathers in the pouter, may be considered as a variation representing the normal structure of another race, the fantail.
I have already pointed out to you very briefly the different habits of the breeds of Pigeons, all of which depend upon their physiological peculiarities, as the peculiar habit of tumbling, in the Tumbler the peculiarities of flight, in the "homing" birds, the strange habit of spreading out the tail, and walking in a peculiar fashion, in the Fantail, and, lastly, the habit of blowing out the gullet, so characteristic of the Pouter.
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