PIGEON. 



449 



ning (ill ho is out of breath, and can run no more ; 

 and then the idea whins him up, and runs off with 

 him so fast and so far, that his head is turned, uud he 

 loses his senses. 



Upon this principle of the overstretching of affini- 

 ties, the Co!i:nibid(C have often been regarded as a 

 division of the Gallbiidic, and described as such. 

 Cuvier says that they form an easy transition from 

 his great order Passeres to the Gal/iniJa:, and he 

 includes them in his order Galllnacccc. Bat every one 

 knows that Cuvier was as modest as he was mighty, 

 and wished to make the fewest changes possible 

 upon the established nomenclature of animals ; and 

 though he speaks of a transition or passage, he cer- 

 tainly does not imply what is called an affinity, either 

 with the mie or with the other. In avoiding the use 

 of this term, Cuvier showed his usual science and 

 sagacity ; for in the two great foundations upon 

 which alone a natural classification of animals, that is, 

 a classification useful as an instrument in the study 

 of nature generally, can be foun Jed, there is little or 

 no resemblance between the pigeon family and the 

 poultry family. These two grand points are, how 

 the animals feed, and how they propagate? The 

 first is the one which goes directly to connect them 

 with nature ; because it is the fact of its consuming 

 the surplus of certain substances which makes an 

 animal useful in the general system of nature ; and 

 the second is useful only as it continues the animal 

 to consume this surplus through successive genera- 

 tions. Now the pigeons are, as has been already 

 hinted, nearly, if not exclusively, vegetable feeders, 

 and feeders chiefly upon seeds or fruits. Many of 

 the poultry, again, are of an omnivorous character, 

 .ne subsist, in great part, upon leaves. 



The distinctions in respect of reproduction are still 

 greater. The poultry tribe are, we believe, without 

 a sinirle exception, polygamous. The males fight 

 battles of gallantry ; but little or no affection subsists 

 between them and the females ; they take no con- 

 cern whatever in the incubation, and some of them 

 are prone to devour the eggs, if these are not con- 

 1 from them. The females also have large 

 broods, and some of them very large ; and though 

 they are attentive mothers, and proverbially brave in 

 the defence of their young, they never, in any in- 

 stance, put food into their months with the bill, nor 

 are there, we believe, any instances in which the 

 young remain in the nest after thev have broken the 

 shell. 



The pigeons, on the other hand, are, in every 

 species of which the habits are known, strictly mono- 

 gamous. The males fight no battles of gallantry, and 

 the affection which subsists between the pair is so 

 great, that doves have, from the earliest times, been 

 regarded as the appropriate emblems, not only of 

 love, but of all the peaceful and kindly affections. 

 The male alternates with the female in the labour of 

 incubation ; the brood is, generally speaking, a single 

 pair; they remain for some time in the nest, and they 

 are fed there by both parents, not only with the bill, 

 but from the stomach, and with the food prepared by 

 solution and combination with a stomachic fluid. This 

 feeding is continued not only until the young leave 

 the nest, but for some time afterwards. 



In these last circumstances there seem to be very 

 substantial grounds for establishingageneral structural 

 distinction between pigeons and poultry. In every 

 department of the feathered tribes it is found that 



NAT. HIST. VOL. III. 



the attention which the young receive after they break 

 the shell is prolonged in proportion as the plumage, 

 and especially the feathers of flight, are to be of a 

 more perfect character, and consequently brought 

 more iuto use, for in nature the use and the quality of 

 that which is used always agree with each other. 

 Now, any one who chooses to set a pigeon and one 

 of the poultry tribe together, taking any of the nume- 

 rous species of either, will not fail to observe, that 

 there is a striking difference in the texture and gloss 

 of the plumage. On the pigeon it is remarkably 

 smooth and compact in the clothing feathers, and 

 equally firm in the feathers of flight, and in the 

 typical pigeons there is not a single supplementary or 

 superfluous feather, nor are there many such upon 

 the others, unless it be a light crest upon the head. 

 Among the poultry there are differences, no doubt ; 

 but the plumage of all is comparatively loose and 

 soft, and a considerable number are furnished with 

 supplemental feathers, which, instead of assisting in 

 their flight, must impede their progress. No doubt there 

 is some similarity in the sterna ; but it is confined to 

 the posterior angles, and consists in there being two 

 notches in each, and the keel of the sterna is much 

 more developed and the articulation of the wing 

 much better supported in the pigeon than in the 

 other. 



Those pigeons indeed, which feed chiefly upon the 

 ground, and never range far in quest of their food at 

 one flight, are inferior in their organs of flight to what 

 may be called the air pigeons ; but their clothing 

 plumage still retains the pigeon character, and they 

 do not display that toil and flutter which are so 

 conspicuous in the others. 



If we look at the action of the birds in the air, we 

 shall soon perceive the difference in this respect ; and 

 perhaps the comparison could not be made upon 

 a fairer average of the two families than upon the 

 rock pigeon in its wild state and the common 

 partridge. 



Whoever has visited those bold and caverned cliffs 

 where rock piueons dwell, may have seen them out 

 when the wind was so strong as that he required to 

 guard both his head and his feet, to prevent him from 

 losing his hat at the one extremity, and from stag- 

 gering 1 or tumbling through instability at the other. 

 Not only are they out in tolerably fresh breezes, but 

 they are quite at home in them, and wheel and dou- 

 ble so as to fly upon all winds without turning a 

 feather. But we believe nobody ever saw partridges 

 rise naturally during a stiff breeze. They make toil 

 and flutter enough on a calm autumnal day ; and if 

 they were to try upon a stiff breeze, a point or two abaft 

 the beam, every windward feather would be up, and 

 they would be compelled to drop helpless to the 

 ground, and seek safety in their legs, from their wings 

 being unfitted for the weather. 



We have instituted these comparisons, both general 

 and particular, in order to prevent the general reader 

 i'rom being misled by some of the modern works 

 which profess to be accurate, and are sold at an easy 

 price, by attempting to demonstrate for him a pro- 

 position which ought to have required no demon- 

 stration, and of which the enunciation is quite a fac- 

 simile of Katerfelto's well-known positive and nega- 

 tive definition of lightning and thunder. It might 

 run thus : First, positively, a pigeon is a pigeon, and 

 a pullet is a pullet ; second, negatively, a pigeon is 

 not a pullet, and a pullet is not a pigeon. We think 

 F F 



