18 COLUMBID^. 



coloured line of the great wing-coverts ; lower back and 

 rump white ; upper tail-coverts slate-gi'ey ; tail-feathers 

 twelve in number, a shade lighter, with a broad terminal 

 dark leaden band, sometimes paler at the extreme tip ; chin 

 bluish-grey ; throat purple and green ; breast, and all the 

 under surface of the body grey; under wing-coverts and 

 axillaries white ; under tail-coverts slate-grey ; tarsi and 

 feet red ; claws dark brown. The total length of the male 

 is fourteen inches ; from the carpal joint to the end of the 

 wing nine inches ; the first quill-feather a little shorter than 

 the second which is the longest. The females are smaller 

 than the males, and their colours, especially on the neck and 

 shoulders, are less brilliant. 



The young, which are at first covered with loose yellow 

 down, are, when fledged, of a duller colour, but other- 

 wise similar to the old birds, with the exception of the 

 metallic tints on the neck : even then their white rump 

 easily distinguishes them from the young of the Stock 

 Dove, and at the first moult they acquire their full 

 plumage. 



It hardly comes within the scope of this work to enter 

 into details respecting the domesticated varieties sprung 

 from this stock. Many of them, as Darwin has remarked, 

 would, if found wild, have been ranked as distinct species, 

 whilst not a few present even structural peculiarities, which 

 would certainly have led ornithologists to place them in dif- 

 ferent genera. A peculiar interest, however, attaches itself 

 to the Homing Pigeon, one of the least removed from the 

 original stock, and often erroneously called the Carrier. 

 The practice of using Pigeons for the conveyance of messages 

 is of great antiquit}-, and Dr. Leith Adams (Ibis, 1864, 

 p. 26) states that on one of the walls of the Temple of 

 Medinet Haboo is a sculpture of the time of Rameses III., 

 B.C. 1297, representing that monarch as having just assumed 

 the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, whilst a priest in 

 the regal procession is sending out four Pigeons to convey 

 the news abroad, shewing that even then they were used for 

 this purpose. The following observations respecting the 



