Chap. V. PIGEOKS : DESCRIPTION OF BREEDS. 137 



, CHAPTER V. 



DOMESTIC PIGEONS. 



ENUMERATION AND DESCRIPTION OP THE SEVERAL BREEDS — INDIVIDUAL 

 VARIABILITY — VARIATIONS OF A REMARKABLE NATURE — OSTEOLOGICAL 

 characters: SKULL, LOWER JAW, NUMBER OF VERTEBRA — CORRELATION 

 OF GROWTH I TONGUE WITH BEAK ; EYELIDS AND NOSTRILS WITH 

 BATTLED SKIN — NUMBER OF WING-FEATHERS, AND LENGTH OF WING — 

 COLOUR AND DOWN — WEBBED AND FEATHERED FEET — ON THE EFFECTS 

 OF DISUSE — LENGTH OF FEET IN CORRELATION WITH LENGTH OF BEAK 

 — LENGTH OF STERNUM, SCAPULA, AND FURCULUM — LENGTH OF WINGS- 

 SUMMARY ON THE POINTS OF DIFFERENCE IN THE SEVERAL BREEDS. 



I have been led to study domestic pigeons with particular 

 care, because the evidence that all the domestic races are 

 descended from one known source is far clearer than with any- 

 other anciently domesticated animal. Secondly, because many 

 treatises in several languages, some of them old, have been 

 written on the pigeon, so that we are enabled to trace the 

 history of several breeds. And lastly, because, from causes 

 which we can partly understand, the amount of variation 

 has been extraordinarily great. The details will often be 

 tediously minute ; but no one who really wants to understand 

 the progress of change in domestic animals, and especially 

 no one who has kept pigeons and has marked the great 

 difference between the breeds and the trueness with which 

 most of them propagate their kind, will doubt that this 

 minuteness is worth while. Not withstanding the clear evi- 

 dence that all the breeds are the descendants of a single 

 species, I could not persuade myself until some years had 

 passed that the whole amount of difference between them, had 

 arisen since man first domesticated the wild rock-pigeon. 



I have kept alive all the most distinct breeds, which I could 

 procure in England or from the Continent ; and have pre- 

 pared skeletons of all. I have received skins from Persia, 

 and a large number from India and other quarters of the 



