230 DOMESTIC PIGEONS. Chap. VI. 



been visible and had been attended to by fanciers, assuredly 

 an additional number might easily have been fixed in the 

 Pouter. If these latter characters had once been rendered 

 constant, we should never have suspected that they had at 

 first been highly variable, or that they had arisen from 

 correlation, in the one case with the shortness of the wings, 

 and in the other case with the length of the body. 



In order to understand how the chief domestic races have 

 become distinctly separated from each other, it is important 

 to bear in mind, that fanciers constantly try to breed from 

 the best birds, and consequently that those which are inferior 

 in the requisite qualities are in each generation neglected ; 

 so that after a time the less improved parent-stocks and 

 many subsequently formed intermediate grades become ex- 

 tinct. This has occurred in the case of the Pouter, Turbit, 

 and Trumpeter, for these highly improved breeds are now 

 left without any links closely connecting them either with 

 each other or with the aboriginal rock-pigeon. In other 

 countries, indeed, where the same care has not been applied, 

 or where the same fashion has not prevailed, the earlier 

 forms may long remain unaltered, or altered only in a slight 

 degree, and we are thus sometimes enabled to recover the 

 connecting links. This is the case in Persia and India with 

 the Tumbler and Carrier, which there differ but slightly from 

 the rock-pigeon in the proportions of their beaks. So again 

 in Java, the Fantail sometimes has only fourteen caudal 

 feathers, and the tail is much less elevated and expanded 

 than in our improved birds.; so that the Java bird forms a 

 link between a first-rate Fantail and the rock-pigeon. 



Occasionally a breed may be retained for some particular 

 quality in a nearly unaltered condition in the same country, 

 together with highly modified off-shoots or sub-breeds, which 

 are valued for some distinct property. We see this ex- 

 emplified in England, where the common Tumbler, which is 

 valued only for its flight, does not differ much from its 

 parent- form, the Eastern Tumbler; whereas the Short-faced 

 Tumbler has been prodigiously modified, from being valued, 

 not for its flight, but for other qualities. But the common- 

 flying Tumbler of Europe has ahead}" begun to branch out 



