The nun is white, with the head, tail, and primary wing-feathers black; it is a breed which was established as long ago {198} as the year 1600. I crossed a male nun with a female red common tumbler, which latter variety generally breeds true. Thus neither parent had a trace of blue in the plumage, or of bars on the wing and tail. I should premise that common tumblers are rarely blue in England. From the above cross I reared several young: one was red over the whole back, but with the tail as blue as that of the rock-pigeon; the terminal bar, however, was absent, but the outer feathers were edged with white: a second and third nearly resembled the first, but the tail in both presented a trace of the bar at the end: a fourth was brownish, and the wings showed a trace of the double bar: a fifth was pale blue over the whole breast, back, croup, and tail, but the neck and primary wing-feathers were reddish; the wings presented two distinct bars of a red colour; the tail was not barred, but the outer feathers were edged with white. I crossed this last curiously coloured bird with a black mongrel of complicated descent, namely, from a black barb, a spot, and almond tumbler, so that the two young birds produced from this cross included the blood of five varieties, none of which had a trace of blue or of wing and tail bars: one of the two young birds was brownish-black, with black wing-bars; the other was reddish-dun, with reddish wing-bars, paler than the rest of the body, with the croup pale blue, the tail bluish, with a trace of the terminal bar. Mr. Eaton[342] matched two short-faced tumblers, namely, a splash cock and kite hen (neither of which are blue or barred), and from the first nest he got a perfect blue bird, and from the second a silver or pale blue bird, both of which, in accordance with all analogy, no doubt presented the usual characteristic marks. I crossed two male black barbs with two female red spots. These latter have the whole body and wings white, with a spot on the forehead, the tail and tail-coverts red; the race existed at least as long ago as 1676, and now breeds perfectly true, as was known to be the case in the year 1735.[343] Barbs are uniformly-coloured birds, with rarely even a trace of bars on the wing or tail; they are known to breed very true. The mongrels thus raised were black or nearly black, or dark or pale brown, {199} sometimes slightly piebald with white: of these birds no less than six presented double wing-bars; in two the bars were conspicuous and quite black; in seven some white feathers appeared on the croup; and in two or three there was a trace of the terminal bar to the tail, but in none were the outer tail-feathers edged with white.