178 Prof. C. O. Whitman,


Rock Pigeon (C affinis) may of course be called 'bars' ; but in

that case we have to remember that they are yet a long way from

the finished bars of such birds as C. livia, the Bleeding Heart

(Phlogcenas), main' Peris teres, and nearly all pigeons with bars in

the adult plumage. So long as the whole wing remains more or

less uniformly marked with distinct lateral spots, confusion may

be avoided by describing it as spotted or chequered. C. affinis

has been so described, and Ectopistes, which has rows of spots

both in young and adult stages, is never described as a barred

pigeon. American and European ornithologists have general^,

I believe, adhered to this mode of description. Salvadori, for

example, in his Catalogue of Pigeons, speaks of Ectopistes as

having "scapulars, tertials, and median wing - coverts with

velvety - black spots," and of Chamoepelia as "marked with

blotches of a steel-blue with violet reflections." In all typical

Turtle-Doves we have rows of spots, but we never think of des-

cribing them as bars. The distinction between spots and bars

has become so fixed in the breeders' terminology, that I did not

realize the danger of any confusion or misunderstanding on this

point before reading Dr. Butler's very courteous review. Had it

been possible to illustrate my paper with plates, my meaning

would probably have been clear in regard to the evolution of

wing-bars from chequers, at least in so far as concerns the Rock-

Pigeons and their descendants.


The typical wing-bar of the adult bird, as I conceived it,

represents a specific regional mark, a continuous band of color

on a uniform ground of contrasting color. In such a bar, the

individualities of the elements are submerged in the individuality

of the bar. When, therefore, as in C. affinis, we meet with rows

of chequers, and find that the posterior two rows are the homo-

logues of the two black bars of C. livia ; and further, that this

two-barred condition is reached in domestic birds through the

obliteration of the anterior rows of chequers, and by cutting

down the chequers in the remaining two rows to outlines that in

each row flow together a single band, we are warranted in saying

that bars are evolved from chequers.


If we speak of the original rows of chequers as bars,

then it becomes necessary to distinguish between juvenal or



