150 DOMESTIC PIGEONS I Chap. Y, 



the Rants. The Scanderoon has a very short, narrow, and elevated 

 tail ; wings extremely short, so that the first primary feathers were 

 not longer than those of a small tumbler pigeon ! Neck long, much 

 bowed ; breast-bone prominent. Beak long, being 1*15 inch from 

 tip to feathered base ; vertically thick ; slightly curved downwards. 

 The skin over the nostrils swollen, not wattled ; naked skin round 

 the eyes, broad, slightly carunculated. Legs long ; feet very large. 

 Skin of neck bright red, often showing a naked medial line, with 

 a naked red patch at the distal end of the radius of the wing. 

 My bird, as measured from the base of the beak to the root of the 

 tail, was fully 2 inches longer than the rock-pigeon ; yet the tail 

 itself was only 4 inches in length, whereas in the rock-pigeon, 

 which is a much smaller bird, the tail is 4f inches in length. 



The Hinkel- or Florentiner Taube of Neumeister (Table XIII., 

 fig. 1) agrees with the above description in all the specified charac- 

 ters (for the beak is not mentioned), except that Neumeister 

 expressly says that the neck is short, whereas in my Scanderoon 

 it was remarkably long and bowed; so that the Hinkel forms a 

 well-marked variety. 



Sub-race II. Pigeon cygne and Pigeon hagadais of Bmtard and 

 Corbie (Scanderoon of French writers). — I kept two of these birds 

 alive, imported from France. They differed from the first sub-race 

 or true Scanderoon in the much greater length of the wing and 

 tail, in the beak not being so long, and in the skin about the head 

 being more carunculated. The skin of the neck is red ; but the 

 naked patches on the wings are absent. One of my birds measured 

 38^ inches from tip to tip of wing. By taking the length of the 

 body as the standard of comparison, the two wings were no less 

 than 5 inches longer than those of the rock-pigeon ! The tail was 

 6£ inches in length, and therefore 2i inches longer than that of the 

 Scanderoon, — a bird of nearly the same size. Tbe beak is longer, 

 thicker, and broader than in the rock-pigeon, proportionally with 

 the size of body. The eyelids, nostrils, and internal gape of mouth 

 are all proportionally very large, as in Carriers. The foot, from the 

 end of the middle to end of hind toe, was actually 2'85 inches in 

 length, which is an excess of "32 of an inch over the foot of the rock- 

 pigeon, proportionally to the relative size of the two birds. 



Sub-race III. Spanish and Roman Punts. — I am not sure that I 

 am right in placing these Bunts in a distinct sub-race ; yet, if we 

 take well -characterized birds, there can be no doubt of the propriety 

 of the separation. They are heavy, massive birds, with shorter 

 necks, legs, and beaks than in the foregoing races. The skin over 

 the nostrils is swollen, but not carunculated ; the naked skin round 

 the eyes is not very wide, and only slightly carunculated ; and I 

 have seen a fine so-called Spanish Bunt with hardly any naked skin 

 round the eyes. Of the two varieties to be seen in England, one, 

 which is the rarer, has very long wings and tail, and agrees pretty 

 .closely with the last sub-race ; the other, with shorter wings and 

 tail, is apparently the Piyeon romain ordinaire of Boitard and Corbie, 



