Chap. V DESCRIPTION OF BREEDS. 151 



These Bunts are apt to tremble like Fantails. They are bad flyers. 

 A few years ago Mr. Gulliver u exhibited a Eunt which weighed 1 lb. 

 14 oz. ; and, as I. am informed by Mr. Tegetmeier, two Eunts from 

 the south of France were lately exhibited at the Crystal Palace, each 

 of which weighed 2 lbs. 2^ oz. A very fine rock-pigeon from the 

 Shetland Islands weighed only 14£ oz. 



Sub-race IV. Tronfo of Aldrovandi (Leghorn Eunt ?). — In Aldro- 

 vandi's work published in 1600 there is a coarse woodcut of a great 

 Italian pigeon, with an elevated tail, short legs, massive body, and 

 with the beak short and thick. I had imagined that this latter 

 character so abnormal in the group, was merely a false representa- 

 tion from bad drawing; but Moore, in his work published in 1735, 

 says that he possessed a Leghorn Eunt of which " the beak was 

 very short for so large a bird." In other respects Moore's bird 

 resembled the first sub- race or Scanderoon, for it had a long bowed 

 neck, long legs, short beak, and elevated tail, and not much wattle 

 about the head. So that Aldrovandi'sand Moore's birds must have 

 formed distinct varieties, both of which seem to be now extinct in 

 Europe. Sir W. Elliot, however, informs me that he has seen in 

 Madras a short-beaked Eunt imported from Cairo. 



Sub-race V. Murassa (adorned Pigeon) of Madras. — Skins of these 

 handsome chequered birds were sent me from Madras by Sir W. 

 Elliot. They are rather larger than the largest rock-pigeon, with 

 longer and more massive beaks. The skin over the nostrils is rather 

 full and very slightly carunculated, and they have some naked skin 

 round the eyes ; feet large. This breed is intermediate between the 

 rock-pigeon and a very poor variety of Eunt or Carrier. 



From these several descriptions we see that with Eunts, as with 

 Carriers, we have a fine gradation from the rock-pigeon (with the 

 Tronfo diverging as a distinct branch) to our largest and most 

 massive Eunts. But the chain of affinities, and many points of re- 

 semblance, between Eunts and carriers, make me believe that theso 

 two races have not descended by independent lines from the rock- 

 pigeon, but from some common parent, as represented in the Table, 

 which had already 'acquired a moderately long beak with slightly 

 swollen skin over the nostrils, and with some slightly carunculated 

 naked skin round the eyes. 



E ace IV. — Barbs. (Indische Tauben ; pigeons polonais.) 



Beak short, broad, deep ; naked shin round the eyes, broad and 

 carunculated ; skin over nostrils slightly swollen. 



Misled by the extraordinary shortness and form of the beak, I did 

 not at first perceive the near affinity of this Eace to that of Carriers 

 until the fact was pointed out to me by Mr. Brent. Subsequently, 

 after examining the Bussorah Carrier, I saw that no very great amount 



11 ' Poultry Chronicle,' vol. jj. p. 573. 



