GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 17 



improved condition of agriculture in the 

 Dominion, which has led to a more liberal 

 system of feeding and more thorough protec- 

 tion from the rigor of the climate. And thus 

 the forces and influences of nature, in some 

 cases aided and in others counteracted by the 

 efforts of man, have constantly been at work, 

 breaking up the uniformity which originally 

 characterized all our domestic animals, until 

 divergence from the original type has become, 

 in many instances, truly wonderful. 



The influences of selection, in creating diver- 

 gence from a type singularly uniform, finds a 

 most striking illustration in the case of the 

 domestic pigeon, of which there are now nearly 

 300 known varieties, more or less distinct, and 

 all probably descended from the common wild 

 rock pigeon. Among these varieties the diver- 

 gence is remarkable, not only in the color of 

 the plumage, which in the original is uniform, 

 but in the shape and markings of the various 

 parts. Who would believe, at first thought, 

 that the pouters, the carriers, the runts, the 

 barbs, the fantails, the owls, the tumblers, the 

 frill-backs, the jacobins, the trumpeters, etc., 

 and all their sub-varieties, with differences so 

 strongly marked, are descended from one com- 

 mon parent stock! Yet that this is true, and 

 that all the varieties from the original type 

 have resulted from changed conditions of life, 



