932 The Zoologist— October, 18C7. 



are induced to look forward to a work of more than ordinary value 

 and completeness. This being the case, we have turned over the 

 pages of Mr. Tegetmeier's work with considerable disappointment at 

 finding so large a portion borrowed from others, and so small a portion 

 purely original. In giving the long extracts to which I refer, Mr. 

 Tegetmeier has used the most perfect good faith ; not only does he 

 acknowledge to the uttermost, every sentence and every line extracted 

 from other sources, but the extracts are selected with considerable 

 judgment, and have a bearing more or less immediate on the subject 

 under discussion. But we all know, or ought to know, the views of 

 Huxley, Darwin, Macgillivray and others who have written expressly 

 on these subjects, and we all should prefer an exposition of Mr. Teget- 

 meier's own views to those of naturalists whose contributions to 

 Science have become trite and familiar, not to say, in some of the 

 instances before us, obsolete. It is not, however, with any view of 

 criticising the efforts of a fellow-labourer in the field of Natural 

 Histoiy, but solely to bring his labours more immediately under the 

 notice of naturalists, that this pigeon-book has been attentively read, 

 and the following selections made from its pages : and first let me 

 invite attention to certain peculiarities physiological and alimentary 

 in the early life of a pigeon. To these peculiarities Mr. Tegetmeier 

 thus alludes : — 



" The structure and habits of the family or group of pigeons are so 

 peculiar and so strikingly distinct from those of other birds, that they 

 demand special attention. The pigeons were formerly classed by the 

 majority of naturalists along with the gallinaceous birds, the true poultry, 

 and by others with the passerine or sparrow-like birds ; but more 

 accurate observation has rendered evident the fact that they form a per- 

 fectly distinct family, distinguished from all other birds by the singular 

 manner in which the young are nourished. Unlike the true Gallinacese 

 — which are hatched in a perfect state and are able to follow the parent 

 hen within a few hours after birth — the young pigeons are born in a 

 most immature and helpless condition, and are fed with a curdy 

 secretion, produced in the crops of the parents, the ' soft food' of the 

 pigeon fancier. This is expressly produced at the period of hatching, 

 for the support of the callow young." — p. 3. 



" This secretion of ' soft food ' as it is termed by pigeon fanciers, 

 cannot be delayed, consequently if the young do not emerge from the 

 eggs on the eighteenth day, the old birds desert the nest, refusing to sit 



