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Show 24 DOMESTIC PIGEONS. CHAP. I. 1 f the smaller British islets, or on the even on severa 0 . Hence the supposed exshores of the Mediterranean. . · · milar habits . t. of so many species having SI term1na 1on " rash assump-with the rock-pigeon seems to me a veryd d t. t d t. Moreover the severa1 ab ov e- name omes 1ca e ~;:~dB have bee~ transported to all parts of the wo~l~ and there1.eo re, some of them must have been carnhe back a ain into their native country; but not o~e as bg me WI.ld or feral though the dovecot-pigeon, ever eco ' . 1 d t t which is the rock-pigeon in a very sbghtly ~ tere s a e, has become feral in several plac~s. Again, all rec~nt experience shows that it is most diffi?ult. to get any wild animal to breed freely under domesticatio?; yet .on the hypothesis of the multiple origin of .our pigeo.ns, It must be assumed that at least seven o.r mg~t species were. s? thoroughly domesticated in ancient times by half-civilized man, as to be quite prolific under confine~ent. An argument, as it seems to me, o.f great weight, and applicable in several other cases, IS, that ~he ab~vespecified breeds, though agreeing generally In constit~tion, habits, voice, colouring, an~ in most parts of t~eu structure, with the wild rock-p1geon, y~t are certainly highly abnormal in other parts of their structure.: we may look in vain throughout the whole grea~ fam1l~ of Columbidoo for a beak like that of the Enghsh carrier, or that of the short-faced tumbler, or barb; for ~eversed feathers like those of the jacobin; for a crop hke th~t of the pouter; for tail-feathers like those of the ~a~~aiL Hence it must be assumed not only that half-Civihzed man succeeded in thoroughly domesticating se_veral species, but that he intentionally. or by chance pwked out extraordinarily abnormal speCies; and fu:ther, that these very species have since all become extinct or unknown. So many strange contingencies seem. to me improbable in the highest degree. CHAP. I. DOMESTIC PIGEONS. 25 Some facts in regard to the colouring of pigeons well deserve consideration. The rock-pigeon is of a slaty-blue, and has a white rump (the Indian subspecies, C. intermedia of Strickland, having it bluish) ; the tail has a terminal dark bar, with the bases of the outer feathers externally edged with white ; the wings have two black bars;· some semi-domestic breeds and some apparently truly wild breeds have, besides the two black bars, the wings chequered with black. These several marks do not occur together in any other species of the whole family. Now, in every one of the domestic breeds, taking thoroughly well-bred birds, all the above marks, even to the white edging of the outer tailfeathers, sometimes concur perfectly developed. Moreover, when two birds belonging to two distinct breeds are crossed: neither of which is blue or has any of the above-specified marks, the mongrel offspring are very apt suddenly to acquire these characters ; for instance, I crossed some uniformly white fantails with some uniformly black barbs, and they produced mottled brown and black. birds; these I again crossed together, and one grandchild of the pure white fantail and pure black barb was of as beautiful a blue colour with the white rump, double black wing-bar, and b;rred and white-edged tail-feathers, as any wild rock-pigeon ! We can unde.rstand these facts, on the well-known principle of reversion to ancestral characters, if all the domestic breeds hav~ descended from the rock-pigeon. But if w.e den! this, we must make one of the two following highly Improbable suppositions. Either, nrstly, that all the several imagined aboriginal stocks were coloured an~ .marked like the rock-pigeon, although no other existing species is thus coloured and marked, so that in each separate breed there might be a tendency to revert to the very same colours and markings. Or, secondly, 0 |
