188 DOMESTIC PIGEONS. Chap. V 



to weigh more than five times as much as a Short-faced 

 Tumbler. The eggs differ in size and shape. According to 

 Parmentier,*" some races use much straw in building their 

 nests, and others use little ; but I cannot hear of any recent 

 corroboration of this statement. The length of time required 

 for hatching the eggs is uniform in all the breeds. The period 

 at which the characteristic plumage of some breeds is acquired, 

 and at which certain changes of colour supervene, differs. 

 The degree to which the young birds are clothed with down 

 when first hatched is different, and is correlated in a singular 

 manner with the colour of the plumage. The manner of 

 flight, and certain inherited movements, such as clapping the 

 wings, tumbling either in the air or on the ground, and the 

 manner of courting the female, present the most singular 

 differences. In disposition the several races differ. Some 

 races are very silent; others coo in a highly peculiar 

 manner. 



Although many different races have kept true in character 

 during several centuries, as we shall hereafter more fully 

 see. yet there is far more individual variability in the most 

 constant breeds than in birds in a state of nature. There is 

 hardly any exception to the rule that those characters vary 

 most which are now most valued and attended to by fanciers, 

 and which consequently are now being improved by continued 

 selection. This is indirectly admitted by fanciers when they 

 complain that it is much more difficult to breed high fancy 

 pigeons iip to the proper standard of excellence than the so- 

 called toy pigeons, which differ from each other merely in 

 colour; for particular colours when once acquired are not 

 liable to continued improvement or augmentation. Some 

 characters become attached, from quite unknown causes, more 

 strongly to the male than to the female sex ; so that we have 

 in certain races, a tendency towards the appearance of secon- 

 dary sexual characters,*^ of which the aboriginal rock-pigeon 

 displays not a trace. 



■"' Temminck, ' Hist. Nat. Gen. ties between the males and females, as are 



Pigeons et des Gallinaces,' torn, i., not directly connected with the act o^ 



1813, p. 170. reproduction, as the tail of the pea- 



■" This term was used by John cock, the horns of deer, &c. 

 Hunter for such differences 11 structure 



