942 The Zoologist— October, 1867. 



down the throat of the young ; taking care that they pass on into the 

 crop and do not collect in the gullet, where by pressing the windpipe 

 they might stop the breathing. 



" The object of soaking the beans is twofold. By it they are rendered 

 larger, and so are more easily handled, and sufficient water is given at 

 the same time as the food ; this is a great advantage, for at the early 

 age at which some pouters require feeding, it is difficult to induce 

 them to drink." — p. 67. 



It will be impossible for anyone to read these various extracts 

 without perceiving that Mr. Tegetmeier is thoroughly master of the 

 practical portion of his most interesting subject. If he has failed in 

 propounding a perfectly unobjectionable theory on the nature of pigeon's 

 milk, and in making the subject clear to all comprehensions, he is at 

 least on an equality with the greatest of all our physiologists, John 

 Hunter, so that nothing can be fairly said in the way of adverse criti- 

 cism. Again, should it be objected to his explanation of the pheno- 

 menon of variation, that it is unsatisfactory and incomplete, I can only 

 say that this is the case with all explanations hitherto published : we 

 have as yet neither a solution of causes nor a classification of facts; 

 and the time has yet to come when these great desiderata shall be 

 supplied. Opposed as I always have been to the now prevalent 

 doctrines of transmutation of species, I willingly accept the pigeon as 

 a " test object." Mr. Darwin has done much the same ; he has dwelt 

 on the variations in pigeons with a fondness and an exhaustiveness 

 that leave nothing to be desired; yet his splendid hypothesis has 

 received no confirmation from the pigeon : within the historic period at 

 least, man with all his skill, and with all his energy, has made no 

 approach to the evolution of a species; no one has contended 

 and no one will contend that the dovecot pigeon is an 

 evolution from the stock dove or the stock dove from the dovecot 

 pigeon, and no one has contended or ever will contend that a new 

 species is in course of evolution, and no one has ever doubted that the 

 dovecot pigeon is the rock pigeon ; the two are identical. It is a mere 

 evasion of the question to say that there has not been sufficient time. 

 Pour water into a butt that has no bottom : the first hour of the opera- 

 tion carries with it the conviction that your labour is futile : if an hour 

 produces no effect, you have no right to expect it from ages. Two 

 parallel lines never meet. The pigeon under such management as 

 Mr. Tegetmeier's is, I repeat, a capital " test object," and if we fail to 



