known for at least 130 years: it breeds perfectly true, as I have been assured
by those who have long kept many birds: it is characterised by a peculiar tuft
of feathers over the beak, by a crest on the head, by a singular coo quite
unlike that of any other breed, and by much-feathered feet. I have crossed
both sexes with turbits of two sub-breeds, with almond tumblers, spots, and
runts, and reared many mongrels and recrossed them; and though the crest on
the head and feathered feet were inherited (as is generally the case with most
breeds), I have never seen a vestige of the tuft over the beak or heard the
peculiar coo. Boitard and Corbie (14/10. 'Les Pigeons' pages 168, 198.) assert
that this is the invariable result of crossing trumpeters with other breeds:
Neumeister (14/11. 'Das Ganze' etc. 1837 s. 39.), however, states that in
Germany mongrels have been obtained, though very rarely, which were furnished
with the tuft and would trumpet: but a pair of these mongrels with a tuft,
which I imported, never trumpeted. Mr. Brent states (14/12. 'The Pigeon Book'
page 46.) that the crossed offspring of a trumpeter were crossed with
trumpeters for three generations, by which time the mongrels had 7/8ths of
this blood in their veins, yet the tuft over the beak did not appear. At the
fourth generation the tuft appeared, but the birds though now having 15-16ths
trumpeter's blood still did not trumpet. This case well shows the wide
difference between inheritance and prepotency; for here we have a well-
established old race which transmits its characters faithfully, but which,
when crossed with any other race, has the feeblest power of transmitting its
two chief characteristic qualities.

I will give one other instance with fowls and pigeons of weakness and strength
in the transmission of the same character to their crossed offspring. The Silk
fowl breeds true, and there is reason to believe is a very ancient race; but
when I reared a large number of mongrels from a Silk hen by a Spanish cock,
not one exhibited even a trace of the so-called silkiness. Mr. Hewitt also
asserts that in no instance are the silky feathers transmitted by this breed