Chap. V. DESCRIPTION OF BREEDS. 143 



and have since seen two others, differ from the Bagadotten of Neumeister 

 only in not having the beak nearly so much curved downwards, and in the 

 naked skin round the eyes and over the nostrils being hardly at all wattled. 

 Nevertheless I have felt myself compelled to place the Bagadotten in 

 Race II., or that of the Carriers, and the present bird in Race III., or 

 that of the Runts. The Scanderoon has a very short, narrow, and elevated 

 tail; wings extremely short, so that the first primary feathers were 

 not longer than those of a small tumbler pigeon! Neck long, much 

 bowed ; breast-bone prominent. Beak long, being 1\L5 inch from tip to 

 feathered base ; vertically thick ; slightly curved downwards. The skin 

 over the nostrils swollen, not wattled ; naked skin round the eyes, broad, 

 slightly carunculated. Legs long ; feet very large. Skin of neck bright 

 red, often showing a naked medial line, with a naked red patch at the 

 distant end of the radius of the wing. My bird, as measured from the 

 base of the beak to the root of the tail, was fully 2 inches longer than 

 the rock-pigeon ; yet the tail itself was only 4 inches in length, whereas in 

 the rock-pigeon, which is a much smaller bird, the tail is 4f inches in length. 



The Hinkel or Florentiner-Taube of Neumeister (Table XIII., fig. 1) 

 agrees with the above description in all the specified characters (for the 

 beak is not mentioned), except that Neumeister expressly says that 

 the neck is short, whereas in my Scanderoon it was remarkably long and 

 bowed ; so that the Hinkel forms a well-marked variety. 



Sub-race II. Pigeon Cygne and Pigeon Bagadais of Boitard and Corbie 

 (Scanderoon of French writers).— I kept two of these birds alive, imported 

 from France. They differed from the first sub-race or true Scanderoon in 

 the much greater length of the wing and tail, in the beak not being so 

 long, and in the skin about the head being more carunculated. The skin 

 of the neck is red ; but the naked patches on the wings are absent. One 

 of my birds measured 38£ inches from tip to tip of wing. By taking the 

 length of the body as the standard of comparison, the two wings were no 

 less than 5 inches longer than those of the rock-pigeon ! The tail was 

 6i inches in length, and therefore 2£ inches longer than that of the 

 Scanderoon— a bird of nearly the same size. The beak is longer, thicker, 

 and broader than in the rock-pigeon, proportionally with the size 'of body! 

 The eyelids, nostrils, and internal gape of mouth are all proportionally 

 very large, as in Carriers. The foot, from the end of the middle to end 

 of hind toe, was actually 2-85 inches in length, which is an excess of 

 •32 of an inch over the foot of the rock-pigeon, relatively to the size of 

 the two birds. 

 _ Sub-race III. Spanish and Roman Runts.~I am not sure that I am 

 right in placing these Runts in a distinct sub-race; yet, if we take well 

 characterized birds, there can be no doubt of the propriety of the separa- 

 tion. They are heavy, massive birds, with shorter necks, legs, and beaks 

 than m the foregoing races. The skin over the nostrils is swollen, but 

 not carunculated; the naked skin round the eyes is not very wide, and 

 on y slightly carunculated; and I have seen a fine so-called Spanish Runt 

 with hardly any naked skm round the eyes. Of the two varieties to be 

 seen m England, one, which is the rarer, has very long wings and tail 



