18 DOMBSriO PIGEONS. 



Moreover, the possibility of making distinct races by cross- 

 ing has been greatly exaggerated. Many cases are on record 

 showing that a race may be modified by occasional crosses 

 if aided by the careful selection of the" individuals which 

 present the desired character; but to obtain a race inter- 

 mediate between two quite distinct races would be very 

 difficult. Sir J. Sebright expressly experimented with 

 this object and failed. The offspring from the first cross 

 between two pure breeds is tolerably and sometimes (as I 

 have found with pigeons) quite uniform in character, and 

 every thing seems simple enough; but when these mongrels 

 are crossed one with another for several generations, hardly 

 two of them are alike, and then the difficulty of the task 

 becomes manifest. 



BEEBDS OF THE DOMESTIC PIGEOIT, THEIR DIFFEREKCES 

 AND OEIGI]S^. 



Believing that it is always best to study some special 

 group, I have, after deliberation, taken up domestic 

 pigeons. I have kept every breed which I could purchase 

 or obtain, and have been most kindly favored with skins 

 from several quarters of the world, more especiallv by the 

 Hon. W. Elliot, from India, and by the Hon. 0. Murray, 

 from Persia. Many treatises in different languages have 

 been published on pigeons, and some of them are very 

 important as being of considerable antiquity. I have 

 associated with several eminent fanciers and have been per- 

 niitted to join two of the London Pigeon Clubs. The 

 diversity of the breeds is something astonishing. Compare 

 the English carrier and the short-faced tumbler, and see 

 the \yonderf nl difference in their beaks, entailing corres- 

 ponding differences in their skulls. The carrier more 

 especially the male bird, is also remarkable from the won- 

 derful development of the carunculated skin about the 

 Jiead; and this is accompanied by greatly elongated evelids 

 very large external orifices to the nostrils, and a wide gape 

 of mouth. The short-faced tumbler has a beak in outline 

 almost like that of a finch; and the common tumbler has 

 the singular inherited habit of flying at a great height in a 

 compact flock and tumbling in the air head over heels 

 Ihe runt is a bird of great size, with long massive beak 



