220 Heredity. 



volving like a wheel, though they sometimes lose their 

 balance and make a rather ungraceful fall, in which 

 they occasionally hurt themselves by striking some ob- 

 ject. They begin to tumble almost as soon as they can 

 fly ; at three months old they tumble well but still fly 

 strong ; at five or six months they tumble excessively, 

 and in the second year they mostly give up flying on ac- 

 count of their tumbling so much and so close to the 

 ground. Some fly round with the flock, throwing a 

 clean somersault every few yards, till they are obliged 

 to settle from giddiness and exhaustion. These are 

 called air-tumblers, and they commonly throw from 

 twenty to thirty somersaults in a minute, each clear 

 and clean. I have one red cock that I have on two or 

 three occasions timed by my watch, and counted forty 

 somersaults in the minute. Others tumble differently. 

 At first they throw a single somersault, then it is 

 doubled till it becomes a continuous roll, which puts an 

 end to flying, for if they fly a few yards, over they go, 

 and roll till they reach the ground. Thus I had one 

 kill herself, and another broke his leg. Many of them 

 turn over only a few inches from the ground, and will 

 tumble two or three times in flying across their loft. 

 These are called house-tumblers, from tumbling in the 

 house." 



The tumbling habit is shared by both sexes, but as in 

 the case of the pouter, it is the male which excels. 



The carrier and barb races of domestic pigeons are 

 characterized by the presence of naked carunculated 

 skin over the beak and around the eyes, and in both of 

 these races this feature is most pronounced in the males. 

 These illustrations are sufficient to show that the dis- 

 tinctive characteristics of each breed of domesticated 

 pigeons are either alike in both sexes, or else most de- 



