108 LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



skeleton, it was to Tegetmeier he applied. After 

 his attending as a visitor, with Yarrell, the 

 meeting ot the Philoperisteron Club, Darwin 

 became a member of it while pursuing his 

 inquiries anent pigeon-breeding ; the probability- 

 is that Tegetmeier was his proposer. 



An incident which shows how nearly in the 

 same groove the thoughts of the two naturalists 

 ran on certain matters may be mentioned. 

 Darwin, in the first edition of his work The 

 Descent of Man, had propounded the possibility 

 of limiting a character to one sex by process of 

 selection, and he suggested how the thing might 

 be done in the case of pigeons, perpetuating a 

 distinct colour in the females only. In 1872 Teget- 

 meier published* a paper on " The Production 

 of Sexual Variations in the Plumage of Birds," 

 in which he related the facts he had ascertained 

 by experiments carried out during the three 

 years preceding. The colours of the cock and hen 

 blue pigeon are normally identical ; but some- 

 times normally coloured parents produce the 

 pale variety of young known to fanciers as a 

 " silver." The " silver " is almost invariably 

 a hen ; and if this silver hen be mated with a 

 blue cock they sometimes produce a pair of 

 blue birds, but frequently a blue and a silver. 

 And the remarkable fact brought out by Teget- 

 meier is that in the great majority of cases 



* The Field, of September 21st. 



