SOME LESSER DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 95 



strenuous grubbing, have sunk backwards upon their faces as 

 the face muscles have degenerated ; the skull has changed 

 profoundly; the tusks of the male, no longer tested in savage 

 duels, have dwindled ; and the food canal, exercised by over- 

 much food, has lengthened. Even habits have changed : the 

 domestic pig feeds by day, the male no longer seeks solace 

 in seclusion, the female bears more young at a birth and 

 bears them more frequently, the descendants of the hard- 

 living boar of the forest have become the types of gluttony. 



THE PIGEON 



The dow 



Heich in the lift full glaide he gan behald, 

 And with hir wingis sorand mony fald. 



GAWAIXE DOUGLAS. 



Amongst domesticated birds none other has taken so dis- 

 tinctive a place in Scottish life as the pigeon. To Charles 

 Darwin we owe a clear demonstration of the fact that 

 the innumerable and extraordinary varieties of modern 

 domesticated pigeons owe their origin one and all to the 

 Rock Dove (Columba livia] (Fig. 22, p. 96). With this 

 great variety of form due to man's influence I do not 

 propose to deal, the curious reader will find it described 

 and discussed in full in Darwin's Plants and Animals iinder 

 Domestication. Here, confining myself to the Scottish aspect 

 of the subject, I shall endeavour to show that in Scotland the 

 wild Rock Dove was domesticated, and shall give some 

 account of the significance of the early domesticated race. 



The Rock Dove was at one time a common dweller on 

 the sea-coast of Scotland, and although constant slaughter 

 has reduced it in some areas almost to extinction, it is still 

 to be found from St Abbs' Head to the Orkneys and Shet- 

 land, in the Hebrides and on the West coast, in places 

 where exist caves suitable for its tenancy. In these deep 

 caverns, the "doo-caves" familiar to many a district, the 

 Rock Doves congregate in flocks, roosting on the ledges 

 within, and there also building their slight nests during the 

 long breeding season from March to September. From the 

 caves they issue during the daytime to feed upon the farmer's 



