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Show 204: DOMESTIC PIGEONS. CnAP. VI. origin: formerly, when I went into my aviaries and watched such · birds as pouters, carriers, barbs, fantails, and short-faced tumblers, &c., I could not persuade myself that they bad all descended from the same wil<l stock, and that man had consoqncntly in one sense created those remarkable modifications. ':rhorofore I have argued the question of their origin at groat, and, as some will think, superiluous length. Finally, i11 favour of the belief that all the races are descended from a single stock, we have in Colurnba liuia a still existing and widely clistriLutocl species, which can be and has been domesticated in various countries. This species agrees in most points of structure and in all its habits of lifo, as well as occasionally in every detail of plumage, with the several dome tic races. It breeds fi·eely with them, and produces fertile offspring. It varies in a state of nature,30 and still more o when semi-domesticated, as shown by comparing the Sierra Leone pigeons with those of India, or with those which apparently have run wild in Madeira. It has undergone a still greater amount of variation in theca o of the numerous toy-pigeons, which no one snpr oses to be de cended from distinct species; yet some of these toypigeons have transmitted their character truly for centuries. Why, then, ·hould we hesitate to believe in that greater amount of variation which is necessary for the production of the eleven chief races ? It should be borne in mind that in two of tho most strongly-marked races, namely, carriers and short-faced tumblers, the extrema forms can be connected with the parentspecies by graduated differences not greater than those which may be observed between the dovecot-pigeons inhabiting different countries, or between the various kinds of toy-1 igeons,gradations which must certainly be attributed to variation. ':J..1hat circum tances ha\'e been eminently favourable for the modification of the pigeon through variation and selection will now be shown. The earliest record, as has been pointed out to roo by Professor Lepsius, of pigeons in a domesticated condition, occurs in the fifth Egyptian dynasty, about 30 It dcscrv s noti c, as bearing on the gcnel'ld subject of variation, that not only C. livia prc::;cnt:; scveml wild form ·, regarded by some natnmli:;ts as species and by others as sub-::;pecics or a.s mere varieties, but that the species of several allied genera are iu tho samo predicament. 'l'his is the ca::;c, as 1\:Ir. lllytJ1 has rcmarkcll to me, with Trcron, Palumbu:;, and 'l'urtur. CHAP. VI. FORMATION OF RACES. 205 3000 B.C. ; 31 but Mr. Birch, of the British Museum, informs me that tho pigeon appears in a bill of fin·e in the previous dynasty. Domestic pigeons are mentioned in Genesis, Leviticus, and Isaiah.32 In the time of the Romans, as wo hear from Pliny,33 immen~e prices were given for pigeons; "nay, they are come, to th1s p.aRs, that they can reckon up their pedigree and raco. In India, about the year 1600, pigeons were much valued by Akber Khan : 20,000 birds were carried about with the court, and the merchants brought valuable collections. " The m?narc~1s of, Iran and Turan ~ent .him some very rare breeds. HI~ MaJesty, says tho courtly histonan, "by crossing the breeds, whwh method was never practised before, has improved them astonishingly." 3't Akber Khan possessed seventeen distinct kinds, eight of which were valuable for beauty alone. At about this same period of 1600 the Dutch, according to Aldrovandi, were as eager ~bout pigeons as the Romans had formerly been. ~he breeds ~h1ch w:ere kept during the fifteenth century in Europe and m Incha apparently differed from each other. Tavernier, in his Travels in 1677, speaks, as does Ohardin in 1735, of the vast number of pigeon-houses in Persia; and the f~rmer remarks that, as Christians were not permitted to keep p1geons, some of the vulgar actually turned l\fahometans for this sole yurpose. _The Et~peror. of Morocco had his favomite keeper of p~geons, as IS menti~ned m 1\f.oore's treatise, published 1737. In England, fro~n the time of vV1llughby in 1G78 to the present . day, as well as m Germany and in Franco, numerous treatises have been published on the pigeon. In India, about a hu~clred years ago, a Persian treatise was written; and the :vnter ~bought it no light affair, for he begins with a solemn mvocatwn, " in the name of God, the gracious and merciful." l\Iany large towns, in Europe and the United States now have their societies of devoted pigeon-fanciers: at presen; there are throe such societies in London. In India, as I hear from 31 'Dcnkmnlcr,' Abth. ii. Bl. 70. 32 Tho 'Dov cote,' by the H.ov. E. s. Dixon, 1851, pp. 11-13. Adolphe Pictct (in Lill • Los Origines Inclo-EUl'opeennc:;,' Ul59, p. 3~U) states that there are in the ancient Sanserit language between 25 and 30 names for tile pi"'eon and other 15 or Hi Persian ua':.nes; nono of these are common to the European languages. This fact indicates the antiquity of the domestication in tLe Ea t of the pigeon. 33 English translation, 1601, book x. ch. xxxvii. 34 • Ayecn Akbcry,' translated by F. Gladvin, 4to. edit., vol. i. p. 270. |