CHAP, in.] PROPOSED CLASSES. 



bouse Pigeon, may, very rarely, assume an independent 

 mode of life ; but wild Fantails, or Nuns, or Powters, or 

 Jacobins, are things unheard of. Our second class will 

 embrace those Pigeons which are found both in the do- 

 mestic and the wild state. These are the birds that 

 seem now and then to oscillate between the abodes of 

 men and the solitude of cliffs and mountains. The 

 third class will comprise those which appear quite inca- 

 pable of domestication, and are only to be retained in 

 captivity by strict aviary confinement, without which 

 restraint they would immediately fly back to their woods 

 and wildernesses. It is possible that a few domesticable 

 birds, whose tempers have as yet been untried, may be 

 included in this third class, which is so large, embracing 

 such a number of species, that we can only just touch 

 upon some of them in the present volume. It will be 

 seen also that this arrangement does not in the least 

 clash with the classification of the systematic Natu- 

 ralist, but is quite independent and irrespective of it. 



At this early stage of our history we may be asked, 

 and may as well endeavour to answer the question, what 

 is the distinction between the words " Pigeon" and 

 ' Dove."* Pigeon is of Gallic, Taube (pronounced 



* The name of the Pigeon, like that of several of our other 

 domestic birds, has been used by voyagers, in the poverty of their 

 ornithological vocabulary, to denote certain species of oceanic water- 

 fowl. Thus we often read of the Greenland Dove ; but the only 

 Dove which can support the rigorous climate of Greenland is a Gull 

 subsisting on fish, blubber, or the lower marine animals. We often 

 in childhood, while reading Cook's and still earlier voyages, have 

 been struck with the mention of Port Egmont Hens, and wondered 

 whether the Hens which our sailors were so delighted to find in 

 antarctic regions, were as pretty as our neighbour's Bantams, and 

 whether the Port Egmont Cocks, which we took for granted to exist 

 in due proportion to the Hens, were as splendid as the red game 

 fowls with which we were acquainted. The charm is dispelled by 



