United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But to use such an expression as trying to make a fantail, is, I have no doubt, in most cases, utterly incorrect. The man who first selected a pigeon with a slightly larger tail, never dreamed what the descendants of that pigeon would become through long-continued, partly unconscious and partly methodical selection.
The birds appear to be quite proud of their power of swelling and puffing themselves out in this way; and I think it is about as droll a sight as you can well see to look at a cage full of these pigeons puffing and blowing themselves out in this ridiculous manner. The third kind I mentioned the Fantail is a small bird, with exceedingly small legs and a very small beak.
The water leaves her run sharp after bearing her to the last inch, and no suction is formed by undue cutaway. Smooth-water sailors say, "Where is her overhang?" They never crossed the Gulf Stream in a nor'easter, and they do not know what is best in all weathers. For your life, build no fantail overhang on a craft going offshore.
Thirdly, those characters which are mainly distinctive of each breed, for instance the wattle and length of beak of the carrier, the shortness of that of the tumbler, and the number of tail-feathers in the fantail, are in each breed eminently variable; and the explanation of this fact will be obvious when we come to treat of selection.
The fantail has thirty or even forty tail feathers, instead of twelve or fourteen, the normal number in all members of the great pigeon family; and these feathers are kept expanded, and are carried so erect that in good birds the head and tail touch; the oil-gland is quite aborted. Several other less distinct breeds might be specified.
Ainger's letter in the Spectator of September 22nd reminds me of an almost identical friendship that existed some years ago at Grove House, Knutsford. A long-haired mastiff was kept chained as a watch-dog, and when a white fantail pigeon's mate died, it attached itself to the mastiff, and was continually with it in the kennel.
For instance, it is just possible, if our fantail-pigeons were all destroyed, that fanciers, by striving during long ages for the same object, might make a new breed hardly distinguishable from our present fantail; but if the parent rock-pigeon were also destroyed, and in nature we have every reason to believe that the parent-form will generally be supplanted and exterminated by its improved offspring, it is quite incredible that a fantail, identical with the existing breed, could be raised from any other species of pigeon, or even from the other well-established races of the domestic pigeon, for the newly-formed fantail would be almost sure to inherit from its new progenitor some slight characteristic differences.
Turning his head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutred with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his tied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was Sloppy's. 'Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen! roared Sloppy in a peal of laughter, and with immeasureable relish.
Perhaps the parent bird of all fantails had only fourteen tail-feathers somewhat expanded, like the present Java fantail, or like individuals of other and distinct breeds, in which as many as seventeen tail-feathers have been counted.
"That's our road." He lifted his bridle rein. "Amble along, Sam!" To that amble he crooned to himself, pleasantly, half-dreamily as if he voiced indirectly some inner thought quaint snatches of old song: "She came to the gate and she peeped in Grass and the weeds up to her chin; Said, 'A rake and a hoe and a fantail plow Would suit you better than a wife just now."
Word Of The Day