Chapter XUII. 



o< THE RUNT PIGEON. >o 



S explained before, the name of Runt was 

 formerly applied generally to all common 

 pigeons in England, and is, no doubt, often 

 still so used; but pigeon fanciers now use 

 the name to designate the variety of gigantic 

 pigeons which Moore and subsequent authors wrote of as the 

 Spanish Runt. I should suppose that the name was given on 

 account of the breed having so little to distinguish it, in 

 general conformation, from the common pigeon, that they were 

 looked upon, when first introduced into England, as the com- 

 mon pigeons of the place they came from, and that the name 

 is not, as supposed by Willughby, a corruption of the Italian 

 Tronfo, or of anything else. The Runt would appear to be 

 of an ancient race. Dixon says: — "But the point respecting 

 Runts which most deserves the notice of speculative naturalists 

 is their extreme antiquity. The notices of them in Pliny and 

 other nearly contemporary writers are but modem records, 

 for Dr. Buckland enumerates the bones of the pigeon among 

 the remains in the cave at Kirkdale, and figures a bone which, 

 he says, approaches closely to the Spanish Runt, which is 



