180 THE FORMATION OF VARIETIES. 



stead of a very long beak, has a very short and very 

 broad one. The Pouter has a much elongated body, 

 wings, and legs, and an enormously developed crop. 

 * * The Turbit has a very short and conical 

 beak, with a line of reversed feathers down the breast, 

 and it has the habit of continually expanding, slightly, 

 the upper part of the oesophagus. The Jacobin has 

 the feathers so much reversed along the back of the 

 neck, that they form a hood, and it has proportionally 

 to its size, much elongated wing and tail feathers. 

 The Trumpeter and Laugher, as their names express, 

 utter a very different coo, from the other breeds. The 

 Fantail has thirty or even forty tail feathers, instead of 

 twelve or fourteen, the normal number in all members 

 of the great pigeon family; and these feathers are kept 

 expanded, and are carried so erect, that in good birds, 

 the head and tail touch ; the oil gland is quite aborted." 



A certain number of characters belong to the species, 

 Pigeon. Those characters, which were, under nature, 

 lost, and which are re-developed, under domestication, 

 are distributed among different varieties and these 

 characters, and the others, simply have their propor- 

 tions, and their number, varied in the different varie- 

 ties. In some varieties, some of these characters are 

 wholly suppressed, or greatly reduced. All of the 

 positive characters should be developed, fully and pro- 

 portionately, in each individual. Each variety, ob- 

 viously, then, falls short of the true type, viz., the sum 

 of all the features. It is our task to show, that, inas- 

 much as each variety so falls short, evil is entailed upon 

 it. This is done in the succeeding chapter. 

 (Page 262, Vol. i.) The fancier, says Darwin : 

 "Endeavors to exaggerate every peculiarity in his 



