Safi

The Safi house — the finest, most beautiful and most highly valued of the Egyptian Ghuzar pigeons, and the most distinctive. By beak (bone) structure the Safi divides into three grades — Safi Qate' (virtually beakless, roughly 1 mm, with a pronounced clamp into the face), Safi (marginally longer, by millimetres), and Safi Ada (slightly longer again with less clamp and a finer, more pointed tip). All three share every other standard. The head must be small and perfectly round front and back with no ridges or flattening; the beak must read as part of the head, as short as possible, blunt and broad; the eyelid is very thin and usually white; the eye is round, wide and slightly open, with the Iraqi iris in its various shades as the basis for all Safi strains. Body length averages 35 cm — longer is better — with small, short, smooth legs. Optional refinements that add value but whose absence is not a fault: the arched neck (arqaba), the throat wattle (laghd), the tongue socket (shakima) and the tongue-swallowing motion.