CHAP. in. j LITTLE INVESTIGATED BY NATURALISTS. 75 



to their disciples and successors. Zoologists are too 

 busy with the vast array of objects they have to set in 

 order, to be able to spare much time on the diversities 

 of domesticated animals, and are, I may be permitted 

 to say, too easily contented to receive without investi- 

 gation the traditional accounts offered to them by per- 

 sons whom they believe good authority in that depart- 

 ment. Mr. Selby, in his elegant volume on Pigeons, 

 leans mainly on " the opinion of the most eminent na- 

 turalists as to the origin of the peculiar varieties in the 

 domesticated bird, which is strongly insisted on by M. 

 Temminck in his valuable work, the " Histoire Gene- 

 rale Naturelle des Pigeons." Temminck's work on the 

 Pigeons and gallinaceous Birds is really so valuable, 

 that it has, we believe, remained untranslated only be- 

 cause it is unavoidably deficient in giving the habits and 

 life of the creatures it describes ; but he avows his dis- 

 taste for the study of Fancy Pigeons ; " it is only with a 

 degree of disgust that we occupy ourselves with them : 

 one can scarely treat of these degraded races, except by 

 simple suppositions, which are for the most part made 

 at hazard." But " suppositions" in natural history, 

 which are merely " hazarded for the most part," ought 

 not to be made use of as trustworthy arguments to sup- 

 port the imaginative theories of Buffon, or as safe pre- 

 mises whence to deduce such schemes of displaying the 

 processes of Creation, as are put forth by the Author 

 of the " Vestiges." After Temminck's confession of 

 disgust at his subject, we may withhold our implicit 

 confidence in his authority when he says, " I combine 

 in this article (Columba livid), and regard as so many 

 descendants of the Biset sauvage, all the dovehouse 

 Pigeons, the diverse races of Pigeons of the aviary, which, 



