186 DOMESTIC PIGEONS. C hap. VI. 



which originally came from the S. Natunas Islands in the Malay archi- 

 pelago, and which had been crossed with the Singapore dovecots ; they 

 were small, and. the darkest variety was extremely like the dark che- 

 quered variety with a blue croup from Madeira ; but the beak was not 

 so thin, though decidedly thinner than in the rock-pigeon from the 

 Shetland Islands. A dovecot-pigeon sent to me by Mr. Swinhoe from 

 Foochow, in China, was likewise rather small, but differed in no other 

 respect. I have also received, through the kindness of Dr. Daniell, four 

 living dovecot-pigeons from Sierra Leone ; 17 these were fully as large as 

 the Shetland rock-pigeon, with even bulkier bodies. In plumage some 

 of them were identical with the Shetland rock-pigeon, but with the metallic 

 tints apparently rather more brilliant; others had a blue croup and 

 resembled the chequered variety of C. intermedia of India ; and some were 

 so much chequered as to be nearly black. In these four birds the beak 

 differed slightly in length, but in all it was decidedly shorter, more massive 

 and stronger than in the wild rock-pigeon from the Shetland Islands, or in 

 the English dovecot. When the beaks of these African pigeons were com- 

 pared with the thinnest beaks of the wild Madeira specimens, the contrast 

 was great ; the former being fully one-third thicker in a vertical direction 

 than the latter; so that any one at first would have felt inclined to 

 rank these birds as specifically distinct; yet so perfectly graduated 

 a series could be formed between the above-mentioned varieties, that it 

 was obviously impossible to separate them. 



To sum up : the wild Columba livia, including under this name 

 C. affinis, intermedia, and the other still more closely-affined geo- 

 graphical races, has a vast range from the southern coast of 

 Norway and the Faroe Islands to the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean, to Madeira and the Canary Islands, to Abyssinia, India, 

 and Japan. It varies greatly in plumage, being in many places 

 chequered with black, and having either a white or blue croup 

 or loins ; it varies also slightly in the size of the beak and body. 

 Dovecot-pigeons, which no one disputes are descended from 

 one or more of the above wild forms, present a similar but 

 greater range of variation in plumage, in the size of body, and in 

 the length and thickness of the beak. There seems to be some 

 relation between the croup being blue or white, and the tem- 

 perature of the country inhabited by both wild and dovecot 

 pigeons ; for nearly all the dovecot-pigeons in the northern parts 

 of Europe have a white croup, like that of the wild European 



17 Domestic pigeons of the common published in 1746; they are said, in 



kind are mentioned as being pretty accordance with the name which they 



numerous in John Barbut's ' Descrip- bear, to have been imported, 

 tion of the Coast of Guinea ' (p. 215), 



