Although between the best and common Fantails, now existing in England, there is a vast difference in the position and size of the tail, in the carriage of the head and neck, in the convulsive movements of the neck, in the manner of walking, and in the breadth of the breast, the differences so graduate away, that it is impossible to make more than one 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.
_Sub-race II. Java Fantail._—Mr. Swinhoe sent me from Amoy, in China, the 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. Swinhoe has counted in other birds of this breed from 18 to 24 tail-feathers. From a rough sketch 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 our Fantails. It had a well-developed oil-gland. Fantails were known in India, as We shall hereafter see, before the year 1600; and we may suspect that in the Java Fantail we see the breed in its earlier and less improved condition.
Race VI.—Turbit and Owl. (Möventauben; pigeons à cravate.)
_Feathers divergent along the front of the neck and breast; beak very short, vertically rather thick; œsophagus somewhat enlarged._
Turbits and Owls differ from each other slightly in the shape of the head; the former have a crest, and the beak is differently curved; but they may be here conveniently grouped together. These pretty birds, some of which are very small, can be recognised at once by the feathers irregularly diverging, like a frill, along the front of the neck, in the same manner, but in a less degree, as along the back of the neck in the Jacobin. They have the remarkable habit of continually and momentarily inflating the upper part of the œsophagus, which causes a movement in the frill. When the œsophagus of a dead bird is inflated, it is seen to be larger than in other breeds, and not so distinctly separated from the crop. The Pouter inflates both its true crop and œsophagus; the Turbit inflates in a much less degree the œsophagus alone. The beak of the Turbit is very short, being ·28 of an inch shorter than that of the rock-pigeon, proportionally with the size of their bodies; and in some owls brought by Mr. E. Vernon Harcourt from Tunis, it was even shorter. The beak is vertically thicker, and perhaps a little broader, in proportion to that of the rock-pigeon.