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Show 32 DOMESTIO PIG EONS. [CHAP. I. race." Pigeons were much valued by Akber Khan in India, about the year 1600; never less than 20,000 pigeons were taken with the court. "The monarchs of Iran and Turan sent him some very rare birds ; " and, continues the courtly historian, "His Maj~sty by crossing t~e breeds which method was never practised before, has Improved then1 astonishingly." About this same period the Dutch were as eager about pigeons as were the old Romans. The paramount importance of these considerations in explaining the immense amount of variation which pigeons have undergone, will be obvious when we treat of Selection. We shall then, also, see how it is that the breeds so often have a somewhat Inonstrous character. It is also a Inost favourable circumstance for the production of distinct breeds, that male and female pigeons can be easily mated for life; and thus different breeds can be kept together in the same aviary. I have discussed the probable origin of domestic pigeons at some, yet quite insufficient, length ; because when I first kept pigeons and watched the several kinds, knowing well how true they bred, I felt fully as much difficulty in believing that they could ever have descended from a common parent, as any naturalist could in coming to ·a similar conclusion in regard to the many species of finches, or other large groups of birds, in nature. One circumstance has struck me much ; namely, that all the breeders of the various domestic animals and the cultivators of plants, with whoin I have ever conversed, or whose treatises I have read, are finnly convinced that the several breeds to .. which each has attended, are descended from so Iuany aboriginally distinct species. Ask, as I have asked, a celebrated raiser of Hereford cattle, whether his cattle might not have descended from long-horns, and he will laugh you to scorn. I have never met a pigeon, or poultry, or duck, or rabbit fancier, who was not fully convinced that each main breed was descended from a distinct species. Van Mons, in his treatise .on pears and appleR, shows how utterly he disbelieves that the several sorts, for instance a Ribston-pippin or Codlin-apple, could aver have proceeded from the seeds of the same tree. In- CHAP I.] ~ELECTION BY MAN. 33 numerable other examples could be given. The explanation, I think, is simple : from long-continued study they are strongly impressed with the differences between the several races; and though they well know that each race varies sli,ghtly, for they win their prizes by selecting such slight dilferences, yet they ignore all general arguments, and refuse to sum up in their minds slight differences accumulated during many successive generations. May not those naturalists who, knowing far less of . the laws of inheritance than does the breeder, and knowing no more than 4e does of the intermediate links in the long lines of descent, yet admit that many of our domestic races have descended from the same parents-may they not learn a lesson of caution, when they deride the idea of species in a state of nature being lineal descendants of other species? .Selection.-. Let us now briefly consider the steps by whiCh domestic races have been produced, either from one or from several alHed species. Some little effect may perhaps, be attributed to the direct action of the external conditions of life, and some little to habit; but he would be a bold man who would account by such aaencies for the differences of a dray and race horse, a greyhound and bloodhound, a carrier and tumbler pigeon. One of the most remarkable features in our domesticated races is that we see in them adaptation, not indeed to the animal's or I?la?-t's own good, J:>ut to man's use or fancy. Some variations useful to him haye prob~bly arisen suddenly, or by one step ; many botanists, for Instance, believe that the fuller's teazle, with its hooks, which cannot be rivalled by any mechanical contrivance, is only a variety of the wild Di~sac~s; and t~is amoun_t of change n1ay have suddenly ansen In a seedlmg. So It has probably been with the turnspit dog~ and this is known to have been the case with the ancon sheep. But when we COinpare the drayh. orse and race-horse, the dromedary and camel, the vanous breeds of sheep fitted either for cultivated land or mountain pasture, with the wool of one breed good for one purpose, and that of another breed for another purpose ; when we compare the many breeds of dogs each good for man in very different ways; when we co~pare ~* |