228 DOMESTIC PIGEONS. Chap. VI. 



some bird inflated its crop a little more than other pigeons, 

 as is now the case in a slight degree with the oesophagus of 

 the Turbit. We do not know the origin of the common. 

 Tumbler, but we may suppose that a bird was born Avith 

 some affection of the brain, leading it to make somersaults in 

 the air;**^ and before the year 1600 pigeons remarkable for 

 their diversified manner of flight were much vahied in India, 

 and by the order of the Emperor Akber Khan were sedulously 

 trained and carefully matched. 



In the foregoing cases we have supposed that a sudden 

 variation, conspicuous enough to catch a fancier's eye, first 

 appeared ; but even this degree of abruptness in the process 

 of variation is not necessary for the formation of a new breed. 

 When the same kind of pigeon has been kept pure, and has 

 been bred during a long period by two or more fanciers, 

 slio;ht differences in the strain can often be recognized. 

 Thus I have seen first-rate Jacobins in one man's possession 

 which certainly differed slightly in several characters from 

 those kept by another. I possessed some excellent Barbs 

 descended from a pair which had won a prize, and another- 

 lot descended from a stock formerly kept by that famous 

 fancier Sir John Sebright, and these plainly differed in the 

 form of the beak ; but the differences were so slight that 

 they could hardly be given by words. Again, the com- 

 mon English and Dutch Tumbler differ in a somewhat 

 greater degree, both in length of beak and shape of head. 

 What first caused these slight differences cannot be explained 

 any more than why one man has a long nose and another a 

 short one. In the strains long kept distinct by different 

 fanciers, such differences are so common that they cannot bo 

 accounted for by the accident of the birds first chos-en for 

 breeding having been originally as different as the}'' now are. 

 The explanation no doubt lies in selection of a slightly 

 different nature having been applied in each case; for no 



^'' Mr. W. J. Moore gives a full to an ordinary pigeon, brings oa 



account of the Ground Tumblers of convulsive movements exactly like 



India (' Indian Medical Gazette,' Jan. those of a Tumbler. One pigeon, the 



and Feb. 1873), and says the pricking brain of which had been pricked, com- 



t-he base of the brain, and giving hydro- jjletely recovered, and ever afterwards 



cyanic acid, together with strychnine, occasionally made somersaults. 



