The English Carrier in Victorian times was a pigeon of the highest class and was known as the ''The King of Pigeons''. Whenever a show report appeared in a Livestock newspaper or magazine the Carrier always had first billing.

 Darwin often compared this bird with the diminutive Almond Tumbler in regard to the beak and skull size.

 

The Carrier is a large bird measuring up  to 17 half inches long from end of  tail to tip of beak with a large wattle sometimes referred to as a walnut because of its appearance, the characteristic wattle of the Carrier takes up to 3 or 4 years to look its best.  The breed is thought to have been developed in England from  Persian wattle  pigeons, circa 1670's.

 

Darwin had a break through with this breed and the much shorter beaked Barb, noticing the nestlings beak development was almost indentical for the first few days after hatching, he was surprised by this as he had previously thought that these two breeds were not so closly related.