CHAP. I.] DOMESTIC PIGEONS. 15 



London Pigeon Clubs. The diversity of the breeds is something 

 astonishing. Compare the English carrier and the short-faced 

 tumbler, and see the wonderful difference in their beaks, entailing 

 corresponding differences in their skulls. The carrier, more espe- 

 cially the male bird, is also remarkable from the wonderful develop- 

 ment of the carunculated skin about the head ; and this is 

 accompanied by greatly elongated eyelids, very large external 

 orifices to the nostrils, and a wide gape of mouth. The short-faced 

 tumbler has a beak in outline almost like that of a finch ; and the 

 common tumbler has the singular inherited habit of flying at a 

 great height in a compact flock, and tumbling in the air head over 

 heels. The runt is a bird of great size, with long massive beak 

 and large feet ; some of the sub-breeds of runts have very long 

 necks, others very long wings and tails, others singularly short 

 tails. The barb is allied to the carrier, but, instead of a long beak, 

 has a very short and broad one. The pouter has a much elongated 

 body, wings, and legs ; and its enormously developed crop, which 

 it glories in inflating, may well excite astonishment and even 

 laughter. The turbit has a short and conical beak, with a line of 

 reversed feathers down the breast ; and it has the habit of con- 

 tinually expanding, slightly, the upper part of the oesophagus. 

 The Jacobin has the feathers so much reserved along the back of 

 the neck that they form a hood ; and it has, proportionally to its 

 size, elongated wing and tail feathers. The trumpeter and laugher, 

 as their names express, utter a very different coo from the other 

 breeds. The fantail has thirty or even forty tail-feathers, instead 

 of twelve or fourteen the normal number in all the members of 

 the great pigeon family : these feathers are kept expanded, and are 

 carried so erect, that in good birds the head and tail touch : the 

 oil-gland is quite aborted. Several other less distinct breeds might 

 be specified. 



In the skeletons of the several breeds, the development of the 

 bones of the face in length and breadth and curvature differs 

 enormously. The shape, as well as the breadth and length of the 

 ramus of the lower jaw, varies in a highly remarkable manner. 

 The caudal and sacral vertebrae vary in number ; as does the 

 number of the ribs, together with their relative breadth and the 

 presence of processes. The size and shape of the apertures in the 

 sternum are highly variable ; so is the degree of divergence and 

 relative size of the two arms of the furcula. The proportional 

 width of the gape of mouth, the proportional length of the eyelids, 

 of the orifice of the nostrils, of the tongue (not always in strict 

 correlation with the length of beak), the size of the crop and of the 

 upper part of the oesophagus ; the development and abortion of the 

 oil-gland ; the number of the primary wing and caudal feathers ; 

 the relative length of the wing and tail to each other and to the 



