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Show 212 DOMESTIC PIGEONS. CnAP. VI. with its small conical beak, the Pouter with its great crop, long lea. and body, the Fantail with its upraised, widely-expanded, w~ll-feathcrcd tail, the 1'urbit with its frill and short blunt beak, and the J acouin with its hood. N ow, 1· (' tl n·s same person could 7 • have viewed the pigeons kept before 1600 by Akber h .ban m India and by Aldrovandi in Europe, he would have see.n tho Jacouin with a less perfect hood; the Turbit appareutly w1thout its fi-ill; the Pouter with shorter l gs, and in every way less remarkable-that i if Aldrovandi's Pouter rcscmb1ed the old German kiud · tho i~antail would have been far los singular in appearance, an' d woul<l have bad m.u ch£ wcr feathers m. 1. ts ta1'1. ; he would have seen excellent flying Tumblers, but he would m vain have looked for the marvellous short-faced breeds; he would have seen birds allied to barbs, but it is extremely • doubtful whether he would have met with our actual Barbs; and lastly, he would have found Carriers with beaks and wattle incomparauly less developed than in our English Carriers. lie might have classed most of tho breeds in tho same groups as at present; but the differences between the groups were then far less strongly pronounced than at present. In short, the several breeds had at tllis early period not diverged in so great a degree from their aboriginal common parent, the wild rock-pigeon. Manner of Formation of the clzief Races. We will now consider. more closely the probable steps by which the chief races have been formed. As long as pigeons arc kept semi-domesticated in dovecots in their native country, without any care in selecting and matching them, they are liable to little more variation than the wild 0. livia, namely, in the wings becoming cheqn red with black, in the croup beiug blue or white, and in tho size of the body. ·when, however, dovecotpigeons are tran ported into diversified countries, such as Sierra Leone, the Malay archipelago, and Madeira (whore the wild 0. livia is not known to exist), they are exposed to new conditions of life; and apparently in consequence they vary in a somewhat greater d gree. ·when closely confinecl, either for the pleasure of watching them, or to prevent their straying, they must be exposed, even under their native climate, to CnAP. VI. MANNER OF FORMATION OF TilE ClliEF RACES. 213 considerably different conditions; for they cannot obtain their natural diversitJ of food; and, what is probably more important, they are abundantly fed, whilst debarred from taking much exercise. Under these circumstances we might expect to find, from the analoay of all other domesticated animals, a greater al)lonnt of individual variability than with the wild pigeon; and this is the case. The want of exercise apparently tends to reduce the size of the feet and organs of :flight; and then, from the law of correlation of growth, the beak apparently becomes affected. From what we now see occasionlly taking place in our aviaries, we may conclude that sudden variations or sports, such as the appearance of a crest of feathers on the head, of feathered feet, of a new shade of colour, of an additional feather in the tail or wing, would occur at rare intervals during the many centuries which have elapsed since the pigeon was first domesticated. At the present day such "sports" are generally rejected as blemishes; and tl1ere is so much mystery in the breeding of pigeons that, if a valuable sport did occur, its history would often be concealed. Before the last hundred and fifty years, there is hardly a chance of the history of any such sport having been recorded. But it by no means follows from this that such sports in former times, when the pigeon bad undergone much lc s variation, would have been rejected. W care profoundly ignoran~ of the cause of each sudden aud apparently spontaneous variation, as well as of the infinitely numerous shades of difference between the birds of the same family. But in a fnture chapter we shall see that all snch variations appear to be the indirect result of changes of some kind in the conditions of life. Hence, after a long course of domestication, we might expect to see in the pigeon much individual variability, and occa ional sudden variation , as well as slight modifications from the lessened use of certain parts, together with the effects of correlation of growth. But without selection all this would produce ouly a trifling or no result; for without such aid differences of all kinds would, from the two following causes, soon disappear. In a bcaltl1y and vigorous lot of pigeons many more young birds are killed for food or die than are reared to maturity; so that an individual having any peculiar character, if not selected, would run a good chance of being destroyed; and if not destroyed, the |