48 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



elongated eyelids, very large external orifices to the nos- 

 trils, 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 continually expanding, slightly, the up- 

 per part of the oesophagus. The Jacobin has the feathers 

 so much reversed along the back of the neck that they 

 form a hood; and it has, proportionally to its size, elon- 

 gated 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 curva- 

 ture differs enormously. The shape, as well as the breadth 

 and length of the ramus of the lower jaw, varies in a 



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