Chap. VI. THEIR PARENTAGE. 181 



evident. 2 Nevertheless, Mr. E. Scot Skirving informs me that 

 he often saw crowds of pigeons in Upper Egypt settling on 

 the low trees, but not on the palms, in preference to the 

 mud hovels of the natives. In India Mr. Blyth 3 has been 

 assured that the wild 0. livia, var. intermedia, sometimes roosts 

 in trees. I may here give a curious instance of compulsion 

 leading to changed habits : the banks of the Nile above lat. 

 28° 30' are perpendicular for a long distance, so that when the 

 river is full the pigeons cannot alight on the shore to drink, 

 and Mr. Skirving repeatedly saw whole flocks settle on the 

 water, and drink whilst they floated down the stream. These 

 flocks seen from a distance resembled flocks of gulls on the 

 surface of the sea. 



If any domestic race had descended from a species which was 

 not social, or which built its nest or roosted in trees, 4 the sharp 

 eyes of fanciers would assuredly have detected some vestige of 

 so different an aboriginal habit. For we have reason to believe 

 that aboriginal habits are long retained under domestication. 

 Thus with the common ass we see signs of its original desert 

 life in its strong dislike to cross the smallest stream of water, 

 and in its pleasure in rolling in the dust. The same strong 

 dislike to cross a stream is common to the camel, which has 

 been domesticated from a very ancient period. Young pigs, 

 though so tame, sometimes squat when frightened, and thus 

 try to conceal themselves even on an open and bare place. 

 Young turkeys, and occasionally even young fowls, when 

 the hen gives the danger-cry, run away and try to hide 

 themselves, like young partridges or pheasants, in order that 

 their mother may take flight, of which she has lost the 

 power. The musk-duck (Anas moschata, Linn.) in its native 



2 I J? ave ^ ea / 1 d th + r + gh Sir 1 C ;, L / ei ; , 4 In WGrks ^tten on the pigeon by 

 from Miss Buckley, that some half-bred fanciers I have sometimes observed the 

 carriers kept dnrmg many years near mistaken belief expressed that the 

 London regularly settled by day on some species which natuXs ^d^unt 



SSthTUt;^ 1 " ^-(-contradistinction to arboreal 



tuibedm the r loft by their young being pigeons) do not nerch and build on 



taken, roosted on them at night. trees T™ 1 P f , 



3 < i™oi a Q ™i Tvrorr n f xt <- XT- , , ' ln tne se same works wild species 

 •* 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., resemblino- +>,o „i • e a ^ 



2nd ser., vol. xx., 1857, p. 509 ; and in a are often sai 1 ■ ♦ ° T 



late volumeof the Journal of the Asiatic of the ^ r S 1 * K * Vari ° US *"? 

 a ..{ of _ tne ^o*id, but such species are quite 



ib0uety ' unknown to naturalists. 



