222 DOMESTIC PIGEONS : Chap. VI. 



originated and to have disappeared within this same period. 

 Any one now visiting a well-stocked English aviary would 

 certainly pick out as the most distinct kinds, the massive Kunt, 

 the Carrier with its wonderfully elongated beak and great 

 wattles, the Barb with its short broad beak and eye- wattles, 

 the short-faced Tumbler with its small conical beak, the 

 Pouter with its great crop, long legs and body, the Fantail 

 with its upraised, widely-expanded, well-feathered tail, the 

 Turbit with its frill and short blunt beak, and the Jacobin 

 with his hood. Now, if this same person could have viewed 

 the pigeons kept before 1600 by Akber Khan in India and 

 by Aldrovandi in Europe, he would have seen the Jacobin 

 with a less perfect hood ; the Turbit apparently without its 

 f fill ; the Pouter with shorter legs, and in every way less 

 remarkable — that is, if Aldrovandi's Pouter resembled the old 

 German kind ; the Fantail would have been far less singular 

 in appearance, and would have had much fewer feathers in its 

 tail ; he would have seen excellent flying Tumblers, but he 

 would in 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 incomparably less developed than in our 

 English Carriers. He might have classed most of the breeds 

 in the 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 this early period 

 not diverged in so great a degree as now from their aboriginal 

 common parent, the wild rock-pigeon. 



Manner of Formation of the chief Races. 



We will now consider more closely the probable steps by 

 which the chief races have been formed. As long as pigeons 

 are 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 C. livia, namely, 

 in the wings becoming chequered with black, in the croup 

 being blue or white, and in the size of the body. When, 

 however, dovecot pigeons are transported into diversified 



