67 



1 am quite aware of the varieties amongst the half-bred birds 

 which fly about ponds in parks and other places seldom if e\er 

 straying far from home, and if by chance they do returning 

 shortly ; but the true Mallards always seem to retain their true 

 colour, finer shape, smaller feet, and more chaste feathers. Even 

 if you could mistake them when swimming or flying, the wild 

 birds are unmistakeable when you take them in your hands 

 the true wild birds during a year probably sometimes flying over 

 a quarter of the globe. 



The Rock Dove was evidently another bird intended for man's 

 use : if it were not specially, why was not the Cushat, a much 

 larger, and, I think, handsomer bird, chosen ? but it cannot be 

 successfully domesticated, which is quite the reverse with the 

 Rock Dove. No bird is more easily kept than it in the various 

 forms produced by domestication, during probably centuries. 



The remarks I have made about the Mallard seem the reverse 

 with it : this Pigeon becoming wild seems not quickly to revert 

 to the original colour, as, from the accounts we have of it at its 

 breeding places, varieties seem often to occur; probably these 

 are caused hy domesticated birds straying with those which are 

 wild. Xature however in general approves of uniformity, and 

 probably in time, unless other tame birds became wild in like 

 manner, the natural colour would in time become constant again, 

 as it originally probably was. 



Xo\v for the Canary ; and perhaps you may smile at its insig- 

 nificance. If it was not intended to be a companion to man, why 

 can he not domesticate any other species of small bird so as to 

 make it a similar friend? He cannot, however, with all his 

 wisdom and care : he may, as I said before, succeed with indi- 

 viduals, but he cannot with a species. 



The Grey Lag Goose and the Mallard were the largest, and 

 perhaps the best to eat of their tribes, and they alone have be- 

 come useful to man domesticated. He no doubt long ago tried 

 various allied species and failed with them. Why should this 

 have been so unless some rule beyond his conception had ordered 



