CHAP.III.J DOUBTS. 81 



the Kock Dove, as the results, in the first instance, of 

 domestication, special treatment and soins particuliers. 

 In the first place, when any wide departure from the 

 usual course of nature is announced as having taken 

 place, it is required that those who make the announce- 

 ment, produce evidence of the appearance of the pro- 

 digy, and the circumstances that attended it. Now the 

 usual course of nature in these days is, that the off- 

 spring of all creatures resemble their parents, within 

 tolerably close limits, which, though not exactly defined, 

 are so well understood that any excessive aberration 

 from them is immediately remarked. Exceptions to 

 this usual course do occur from time to time, in the 

 shape of imperfect animals and monsters, with a de- 

 ficiency, or a duplication of parts, double-bodied, some- 

 times even headless. Such are incapable frequently of 

 existence, much less of reproduction. In hybrids, too, 

 between species or varieties that are allied with suffi- 

 cient closeness to be able to procreate young together, 

 the usual course of nature is, that the offspring bear 

 a varying proportion of resemblance to both parents : 

 their forms are intermediate between the two, not some- 

 thing unlike to either. Now the production of a pair of 

 Fantails, as an example, from a pair of Rock Doves, 

 would be a circumstance so out of the course of nature, 

 as to constitute one of those prodigies demanding every 

 unquestionable confirmation. If it be said that the 

 Fantail, or, as the French call it, Pigeon Paon, or Pea- 

 cock Pigeon, is a hybrid, there is no known Pigeon, nor 

 any other bird, capable of being the progenitor of such 

 an offspring, with the Rock Dove. But a class of 

 naturalists assert that it is the offspring of the Rock 

 Dove. They affirm a prodigy to have taken place, with- 



