90 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
colour, the tail has a dark band across the end, the wings 
have two black bands, and the outer tail-feathers are edged 
with white at the base. No other wild pigeon in the world 
has this combination of characters. Now in every one of the 
domestic varieties, even the most extreme, all the above 
marks, even to the white edging of the outer tail-feathers, 
are sometimes found perfectly developed. When birds 
belonging to two distinct breeds are crossed one or more 
times, neither of the parents being blue, or having any of the 
above-named marks, the mongrel offspring are very apt to 
acquire some of these characters. Mr. Darwin gives instances 
which he observed himself. He crossed some white fantails 
with some black barbs, and the mongrels were black, brown, 
or mottled. He also crossed a barb with a spot, which is a 
white bird with a red tail and red spot on the forehead, and 
the mongrel offspring were dusky and mottled. On now 
crossing these two sets of mongrels with each other, he 
obtained a bird of a beautiful blue colour, with the barred 
and white edged tail, and double-banded wings, so as almost 
exactly to resemble a wild rock-pigeon. This bird was 
descended in the second generation from a pure white and 
pure black bird, both of which when unmixed breed their 
kind remarkably true. These facts, well known to ex¬ 
perienced pigeon-fanciers, together with the habits of the 
birds, which all like to nest in holes, or dovecots, not in trees 
like the great majority of wild pigeons, have led to the general 
belief in the single origin of all the different kinds. 
In order to afford some idea of the great differences which 
exist among domesticated pigeons, it will be well to give a 
brief abstract of Mr. Darwin’s account of them. He divides 
them into eleven distinct races, most of which have several 
sub-races. 
Race I. Pouters. — These are especially distinguished by 
the enormously enlarged crop, which can be so inflated in 
some birds as almost to conceal the beak. They are very long 
in the body and legs and stand almost upright, so as to 
present a very distinct appearance. Their skeleton has 
become modified, the ribs being broader and the vertebne 
more numerous than in other pigeons. 
