26 ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



Lepsius ; but Mr. Birch informs me that pigeons are 

 given in a bill of fare in the previous dynasty. In the 

 time of the Romans, as we hear from Pliny, immense 

 prices were given for pigeons ; ' nay, they are come to 

 this pass, that they can reckon up their pedigree and 

 race.' Pigeons were much valued by Akber Khan in 

 India, about the year 1600 ; never less than 20,000 

 pigeons were taken with the court. f The monarchs 

 of Iran and Turan sent him some very rare birds'; 

 and, continues the courtly historian, f His Majesty 

 by crossing the breeds, which method was never 

 practised before, has improved them astonishingly.' 

 About this same period the Dutch were as eager about 

 pigeons as were the old Romans. The paramount 

 importance of these considerations in explaining the 

 immense amount of variation which pigeons have 

 undergone, will be obvious when we treat of Selection. 

 We shall then, also, see how it is that the breeds so 

 often have a somewhat monstrous character. It is 

 also a most favourable circumstance for the production 

 of distinct breeds, that male and female pigeons can 

 be easily mated for life ; and thus different breeds can 

 be kept together in the same aviary. 



I have discussed the probable origin of domestic 

 pigeons at some, yet quite insufficient, length ; because 

 when I first kept pigeons and watched the several 

 kinds, knowing well how true they bred, I felt fully 

 as much difficulty in believing that they could have 

 descended from a common parent, as any naturalist 

 could in coming to a similar conclusion in regard to 

 the many species of finches, or other large groups of 

 birds, in nature. One circumstance has struck me 

 much ; namely, that all the breeders of the various 

 domestic animals and the cultivators of plants, with 

 whom I have ever conversed, or whose treatises I have 

 read, are firmly convinced that the several breeds to 

 which each has attended, are descended from so many 

 aboriginally distinct species. Ask, as I have asked, a 

 celebrated raiser of Hereford cattle, whether his cattle 

 might not have descended from long-horns, and he will 



