Chap. V. INDIVIDUAL VARIABILITY. 159 



tails, as we have seen, the number varies from fourteen to forty-two. In 

 two yonng birds in the same nest I counted twenty-two and twenty-seven 

 feathers. Pouters are very liable to have additional tail-feathers, and I 

 have seen on several occasions fourteen or fifteen in my own birds. Mr. 

 Bult had a specimen, examined by Mr. Yarrell, with seventeen tail-feathers. 

 I had a Nun with thirteen, and another with fourteen tail-feathers ; and 

 in a Helmet, a breed barely distinguishable from the Nun, I have counted 

 fifteen, and have heard of other such instances. On the other hand, Mr. 

 Brent possessed a Dragon, which during its whole life never had more than 

 ten tail-feathers; and one of my Dragons, descended from Mr. Brent's, 

 had only eleven. I have seen a Baldhead-Tumbler with only ten; and 

 Mr. Brent had an Air-Tumbler with the same number, but another with 

 fourteen tail-feathers. Two of these latter Tumblers, bred by Mr. Brent, 

 were remarkable, — one from having the two central tail-feathers a little 

 divergent, and the other from having the two outer feathers longer by 

 three-eighths of an inch than the others ; so that in both cases the tail 

 exhibited a tendency, but in different ways, to become forked. And this 

 shows us how a swallow-tailed breed, like that described by Bechstein, 

 might have been formed by careful selection. 



With respect to the primary wing-feathers, the number in the Colum- 

 bidee, as far as I can find out, is always nine or ten. In the rock-pigeon 

 it is ten ; but I have seen no less than eight short-faced Tumblers with 

 only nine primaries, and the occurrence of this number has been noticed 

 by fanciers, owing to ten flight-feathers of a white colour being one of the 

 points in Short-faced Baldhead-Tumblers. Mr. Brent, however, had an Air- 

 Tumbler (not short-faced) which had in both wings eleven primaries. Mr. 

 Corker, the eminent breeder of prize Carriers, assures me that some of his 

 birds had eleven primaries in both wings. I have seen eleven in one wing 

 in two Pouters. I have been assured by three fanciers that they have seen 

 twelve in Scanderoons; but as Neumeister asserts that in the allied 

 Florence Bunt the middle flight-feather is often double, the number 

 twelve may have been caused by two of the ten primaries having each 

 two shafts to a single feather. The secondary wing-feathers are difficult 

 to count, but the number seems to vary from twelve to fifteen. The 

 length of the wing and tail relatively to the body, and of the wings to the 

 tail, certainly varies ; I have especially noticed this in Jacobins. In Mr. 

 Bult's magnificent collection of Pouters, the wings and tail varied greatly in 

 length; and were sometimes so much elongated that the birds could hardly 

 play upright. In the relative length of the few first primaries I have ob- 

 served only a slight degree of variability. Mr. Brent informs me that he 

 has observed the shape of the first feather to vary very slightly. But the 

 variation in these latter points is extremely slight compared with what may 

 often be observed in the natural species of the Columbidas. 



In the beak I have observed very considerable differences in birds of the 



p. 41, mentions, as a very singular fact, while the other, the passenger pigeon of 



» that of the two species of Ectopistes, North America, should possess but the 



which are nearly allied to each other, usual number— twelve." 

 one should have fourteen tail-feathers, 



