The pigeons kept are the carrier, which are very rare; the tumbler, or mallagh (mallagh, a summersault), and the fantail, or ba-ba-koo. The name exactly represents the call of the fantail. It was this bird which was supposed to bring the revelations to the prophet Mahommed, and consequently keeping a fantail or two is not looked on as discreditable. They are never killed. These fantails do not fly with the rest, keeping in the owner’s yard and on the roof. The yahoo is the other ordinary variety, and is only valued for its flesh, being bred, as we breed fowls, by the villagers. It has a feathered leg, and will not fly far from home. The pigeons are flown twice a day, in the early morning and evening, and it is a very pretty thing to watch. The owner opens the door and out fly all the pigeons, perhaps thirty, commencing a circular flight, whose circles become larger and larger. The fancier watches them eagerly from his roof, and when he has given them a sufficient flight and there are none of his rival’s birds in view, he calls and agitates a rag affixed to a long pole. This is the signal for feeding, and the weaker birds generally return at once to their cupboard, the stronger continue their flight, but lessen the diameter of the circle, and one by one return, the best birds coming back last. As they come over the house they commence to “tumble” in the well-known manner, falling head over heels as if shot; some birds merely make one turn over, while others make twenty. It is a very curious and a very pretty sight. The birds are extremely tame, and settle on the person of the fancier. Hitherto there has been nothing more than a flight of pigeons, but in the afternoon, about an hour or two hours before sunset, the real excitement commences. Up goes a flight of some twenty pigeons, they commence to make circles; no sooner does their course extend over the house of a rival fancier than he starts his birds in a cloud, in the hope of inveigling an outlying bird or two into his own flock; then both owners call, whistle, and scream wildly, agitating their poles and flags. The rival flocks separate, but one bird has accompanied the more successful fancier’s flight. As it again passes over the house of the victimised one, he liberates two of his best birds; these are mixed with the rest, but ere they have completed half a circle they, with the lost one, rejoin their own flight. Their delighted owner now calls down his birds, and in a few moments envelops a pair of his rival’s in a crowd of his own.