CHAP. I.] ANCIENT DOMESTICATION. 13 



raer bird was not the common wild Turtle, which to 

 this day continues to be a free and unreclaimed ranger 

 of the old world, but the Collared Turtle, which makes 

 itself so much at home, and breeds so freely whilst in 

 captivity to man. 



Another notice occurs in Isaiah Ix. 8 : " Who are 

 these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their 

 windows ? " The passage establishes the domestication 

 of the Rock Pigeon at that early epoch. The " win- 

 dows " are clearly the apertures in a dovecote ; and 

 every reader will remember that windows in the East are 

 seldom glazed entrances for light merely, as with us, 

 but are openings to admit air principally, and the sun's 

 rays as little as possible ; and when closed, are done so 

 by lattice work, or shutters, as in pigeon-lofts here : so 

 that the expression " windows " is very appropriate to 

 denote the means of approach to the creatures' dwelling- 

 place. 



The Rock Dove, then, had already become domesti- 

 cated, as a Dovehouse Pigeon, in patriarchal times. 

 It seems almost as if the bird had been created with an 

 innate disposition to attach itself to, and take possession 

 of, as its tenement, all convenient caves, rocks, or unoc- 

 cupied buildings, so as to be at once ready to afford a 

 subsidiary supply of animal food to the increasing 

 family of man. It is not in a highly cultivated and 

 thickly populated country like England that the value 

 of Pigeons, as provision, is perceived. In such 

 places they are destroyed and lost, if allowed to follow 

 their natural instinct of ranging far and wide to obtain 

 their subsistence ; independence and industry are the 

 qualities that constitute their value as live stock. Hence 

 they would deserve far more consideration from the 



