56 Domestic Breeds Formed by Man. 



Take another species, and consider the numerous 

 breeds of pigeons the carrier, the tumbler, the 

 runt with its long beak, the barb with its short 

 one, the pouter with its enormous crop which it 

 glories in inflating, the turbit with its reversed 

 breast-feathers, the trumpeter and laugher with 

 their peculiar coo, the f antail with its forty tail- 

 feathers instead of fourteen. Yet these astonish 

 ingly diverse breeds are all descended from the 

 wild rock -pigeon of the European coasts ; and 

 Darwin, who was a great pigeon-fancier and 

 member of two of the London pigeon-clubs, 

 found no difficulty in explaining the origin of all 

 these varieties from man s power of selecting and 

 accumulating the individual peculiarities which 

 nature was always presenting. Suppose, e.g., that 

 some tamed rock-pigeons, ages ago, happened to 

 have more than fourteen tail-feathers. A pigeon- 

 fancier is struck with the peculiarity, and pre 

 serves these individuals. Their descendants may 

 have sixteen tail-feathers, or perhaps more. In 

 the course of countless generations, pigeons may, 

 as a result of man s constant selection, be pro 

 duced with twenty or thirty tail-feathers, till at 

 last the fantail appears with its full quota of 

 forty. 



Have we not here some light on our question 



