182 DOMESTIC PIGEONS. Chap. VI. 



country often perches and roosts on trees, 5 and our domesticated 

 musk-ducks, though such sluggish birds, " are fond of perching 

 on the tops of barns, walls, &c, and, if allowed to spend the night 

 in the hen-house, the female will generally go to roost by the 

 side of the hens, but the drake is too heavy to mount thither 

 with ease." 6 We know that the dog, however well and regu- 

 larly fed, often buries, like the fox, any superfluous food ; and we 

 see him turning round and round on a carpet, as if to trample 

 down grass to form a bed ; we see him on bare pavements 

 scratching backwards as if to throw earth over his excrement, 

 although, as I believe, this is never effected even where there is 

 earth. In the delight with which lambs and kids crowd together 

 and frisk on the smallest hillock, we see a vestige of their former 

 alpine habits. 



We have therefore good reason to believe that all the domestic 

 races of the pigeon are descended either from some one or from 

 several species which both roosted and built their nests on rocks, 

 and were social in disposition. As only five or six wild species 

 with these habits and making any near approach in structure 

 to the domesticated pigeon are known to exist, I will enumerate 

 them. 



Firstly the Columba leuconota resembles certain domestic varieties in 

 its plumage, with the one marked and never-failing difference of a white 

 band which crosses the tail at some distance from the extremity. This 

 species, moreover, inhabits the Himalaya, close to the limit of perpetual 

 snow ; and therefore, as Mr. Blyth has remarked, is not likely to have been 

 the parent of our domestic breeds, which thrive in the hottest countries. 

 Secondly, the C. rupestris, of Central Asia, which is intermediate 7 between 

 the 0. leuconota and livia ; but has nearly the same coloured tail with the 

 former species. Thirdly, the Columba littoralis builds and roosts, according 

 to Temminck, on rocks in the Malayan archipelago ; it is white, excepting 

 parts of the wing and the tip of the tail, which are black ; its legs are 

 livid-coloured, and this is a character not observed in any adult domestic 

 pigeon; but I need not have mentioned this species or the closely-allied 

 C. luctuosa, as they in fact belong to the genus Carpophaga. Fourthly, 

 Columba Guinea, which ranges from Guinea 8 to the Cape of Good Hope, 



5 Sir R. Schomburgk, in 'Journal 8 Temminck, 'Hist. Nat. Gen. des 

 E. Geograph. Soc.,' vol. xiii., 1844, Pigeons,' torn. i. ; also 'Les Pigeons,' 

 p. 32. par Mad. Knip and Temminck. Bona- 



6 Rev. E. S. Dixon, ' Ornamental parte however, in his ' Coup-d'ceil,' be- 

 Poultry,' 1848, pp. 63, 66. lieves that two closely allied species are 



7 Proc. Zoolog. Soc., 1859, p. 400. confounded together under this name. 



