80 LIFE OF 



the changed conditions of their life, excess or changed 

 quality of food, climate, changed habits, &c. Thus man 

 has effected remarkable changes in many species by 

 consciously or unconsciously selecting particular qualities 

 in the animals or plants kept for use or beauty. Domestic 

 productions seem in fact to have become plastic in man's 

 hands, and the inheritance of acquired qualities by off- 

 spring is reckoned on as almost certain. The breeds of 

 cattle, poultry, dogs, and pigeons, are striking examples. 



Darwin, as he tells us, kept every breed of domestic 

 pigeons he could purchase or obtain, in order to study 

 their variations. In this he was himself reverting to the 

 associations of childhood, when the beauty, variety, and 

 lameness of The Mount pigeons at Shrewsbury were well 

 known. 



We can imagine the astonishment with which the 

 " eminent fanciers " and members of the London Pigeon 

 Clubs, whose acquaintance the great naturalist cul- 

 tivated, received the simplicity, yet depth, of his 

 inquiries, as he came among them day after day, uti- 

 lising all their lore, and yet continually asking what they 

 neither knew nor suspected the drift of. He began 

 his study with a prepossession against the idea of the 

 immense diversity of modern pigeons having originated 

 from one common stock. Yet if such modification has 

 taken place in any creature, pigeons may furnish an 

 example, for they have been kept and bred for thousands 

 of years, being recorded in Egypt about 3000 B.C., and 

 Pliny relates that their pedigree and race could be 

 reckoned by the Romans of his time. " We cannot 

 suppose that all the breeds were suddenly produced as 



